


These Violent Delights

by dimpleforyourthoughts



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Alternate Universe - Mob, Angst, BAMF Jared Padalecki, Bottom Jared, Dubious Morality, Las Vegas, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mob Boss Jensen, Protective Jared, Protective Jensen, Smart Jared, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 04:57:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 81,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7345837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimpleforyourthoughts/pseuds/dimpleforyourthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared Padalecki has only ever wanted to get out of Sin City. Trapped by extenuating circumstances, he works as a waiter in a Las Vegas strip joint, doing what he can to get by, including spending a romantic evening with a handsome stranger who wanders into the club one night. Hoping to see the stranger again, but not disappointed when he doesn’t, Jared moves on with his life. A month later, Jared interviews for a job as a financial consultant at one of the largest and newly made over Hotels on the Vegas strip. Jared gets the job, only to discover that his new boss is the same man he slept with: Jensen Ackles, the enigmatic and ice cold business man. Jensen Ackles, the city's biggest mob boss. Torn between his longing to get out of the city and his yearning to be closer to Jensen, Jared finds himself being sucked into a new and dangerous world where loyalty is everything, passion exists on a knife-edge, and the ever-increasing violence makes it impossible to escape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I always have thank yous, but as I've held off long enough on posting this fic, I'll keep them brief. Thanks to my super-hero story betas: Paula, Jessie, CiCi and Kayleigh. Thanks to Abbey for the 8tracks soundtrack. Thanks to my cheerleaders on twitter and tumblr, so much love to y'all. And thank you to the benevolent wonderful JC for extending the posting period, and modding the comm. 
> 
> This was written for the spnmeanttobe challenge, where I claimed this Harlequin novel summary to base the fic on: 
> 
> 14\. Romancing the Mob Boss. Trina Hathaway is a waitress in a Las Vegas strip joint who spends a romantic evening with a good looking hunk she met at the club. Hoping to see him again, but not disappointed when she doesn’t, she goes on with her life. But a week later, when she interviews for a job at the renowned PaLargio Hotel and Casino on the Vegas Strip, and discovers that the owner of the hotel is the man she had slept with, a man who very much wishes to rekindle what they had captured that passionate night, her entire life spirals into a new and dramatic world where family ties and ever-increasing violence ropes them in.
> 
>  
> 
> You can check out the playlist on [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/dimpleforyourthoughts/playlist/3LZjPHTAhDgGerTSaoM8gJ) OR [8tracks.](http://8tracks.com/musicspeakstoo/these-violent-delights)
> 
> As always, I'm Amy. Come say hi on [tumblr.](http://www.dimpleforyourthougths.tumblr.com) :)

_“These violent delights have violent ends_  
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder  
Which, as they kiss, consume.”

 _\--_ William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet, Act 2, Scene 6 

 

 

* * *

 

There is quite literally no job worse in the world than Jared’s.

On paper, the title of ‘strip-club waiter’ really doesn’t seem all that abhorrent, and Jared’s sure that people who do things like waste management or embalming corpses would have a thing or two to say about that. But the fact of the matter is that while on the paper it seems like your run-of-the-mill semi crappy job, the stepping stone between unemployment and the real world where real income and health benefits exist, the reality is far, far much worse.

At this point in the game, Jared’s almost sure he would almost rather be a stripper. Strippers, like Adrianne and the rest of the girls in their seedy wasteland of a bar called _The Roadhouse_ , at least seem to make way better tips than he does.

No. Tonight is the kind of night where Jared really, _really_ fucking hates working at a twenty-four hour strip-club in Las Vegas.

“Burger for table twelve in the corner,” Jared mutters, slapping down the order that had been slipped suggestively into the waistband in his pants. He had gritted his teeth and taken it because better him, better him than those slime balls putting their hands on one of the girls.

“Rough night?” Milo quirks an eyebrow, slapping a fresh red patty onto the grill with a hot sizzling sound.

“More like rough life.” Jared sighs, leaning against the kitchen window, temporarily taking the weight off his feet—which are _killing_ him. “Just gotta make it through the next two hours, and I’ll be fine.”

“Clubs quieter than most nights.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s any less dicey,” Jared says darkly, staring out at the slack jawed men—eyes wide and glassy with a bastardized mixture of drugs, alcohol and arousal. Adrianne nails a rather impressive spin on the pole that she’s been trying to perfect for weeks, earning her a few more wolf-whistles than usual and a few singles tossed on the stage.

Jared remembers his first week on the job, when he saw how she had snatched up those singles like they were fucking diamonds, and when she had tossed the donators a saucy wink Jared had had the gall to scoff. He hadn’t known that every ounce of money from this job went into feeding her kid so CPS couldn’t take him away. He hadn’t known that Adrianne often didn’t eat when she was at home, choosing rather to save money and exist off of whatever scraps they had in the kitchen at the ends of her shifts.

And she wasn’t the only one.

Alexis was entrenched in eighty thousand dollars of student debt, Tracy and Katie were just trying to make ends meet between their bastard exes with the divorce papers. Every woman who stripped in this bar was a woman who owned what she did and made some pretty damn good money for it. Jared had no right to complain, even if he made barely half their earnings to pay for his shitty one bedroom apartment.

“New customer lingering in the back,” Milo chirps, then grins at Jared with a ‘what can you do’ shrug. “Go work that rough life.”

Ah, yes. The thing Jared hates about his job above all: the customers. Jared stifles another groan of dread. See, The Roadhouse isn’t the most happening club on the Vegas Strip—although Jared will vouch for them having the best food for miles around—and as a result of this, the people that end up here tend to be the bottom feeders in the strip club pool. It’s never harmless Bachelor parties, or the occasional virgin celebrating his 21st with a bang, but rather the guys who got kicked out of all the other clubs because they couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. The customer pool here is lewd and rude, but The Roadhouse is too desperate for business to keep them from coming in.

The Roadhouse has the same No Hands rule as any other strip club—Clif, the bouncer, keeps all misbehaving customers on their toes—but Jared, being the waiter, doesn’t really get the same protection. It doesn’t help that he’s a man, and according to fucked up societal conjectures, he’s safe from all harassment. Most of the guys that make passes are too intimidated by Jared’s height to really try anything, thank God, but he still has to deal with the occasional leering and sexual comments and hungry stares as they try to slip any and all innuendo into their food and beverage order.

And being as the night has already gotten off to that sort of start, Jared grabs his pad of paper and braces himself for the worst. He makes for the farthest and gloomiest corner of the club, where the newest patron has settled in the shadows, head dipped down and away from the booming subwoofer and flashing lights. He is possibly the only man in the room not paying any attention to the girls.

Huh.

“Hey there cowboy,” Jared drawls, ignoring the strange nostalgic pang that hits him every time he uses the scripted Texas dialect in his job, a remnant of home. He’s sure it’s ninety percent of the reason why he was able to get the job in the first place, what with not even a high school degree to show for it. “Welcome to the Roadhouse Strip Club and Bar, what can I get for you?”

The ‘cowboy’ in question raises his head, and whatever Jared had been expecting, it’s definitely not what looks up at him.

In his eighteen months of working here, Jared’s pretty much gotten the tunnel vision when it comes to the job; he ignores any and all people in this club apart from the money they pay him to deliver their food. Gay though he may be, he’s seen and heard enough of the most disgusting men on earth to pretty much deter him from all sexual endeavors for life. By this point, he’s used to letting his eyes skip over the customers. Even if they’re good looking, the wolfish eyes and hungry expressions are more than enough to keep Jared immune.

So it’s a complete shock to Jared’s system when he looks into the eyes of this guy who looks… frankly, rather lost. Like he’d gone looking for something but it hadn’t been this, and he’d somehow ended up here anyway, and looks rather confused by it all, as if he hadn’t meant to.

The expression is there and then it’s gone, tucked a casual mask of indifference, with a smear of professionalism around the polite smile, and the stranger says, “I’m ashamed to admit I’ve never been here before. What’s the best thing on the menu?”

“Um.” Jared blinks, stupidly. Guess the guy hadn’t glanced over at the menu they had written on the chalkboards over the bar. “California Burger. Bacon, white cheddar, avocado, bun toasted in garlic aioli sauce. Hands down.”

“One of those and uh… wine I guess.”

Jared blinks again. “We don’t… uh… we don’t serve wine?”

The man looks oddly relieved, and Jared visibly notices the tension ooze out of his shoulders, like he’s finally realized that this is a place he’s never been to, and it’s exactly what he wanted. “Beer, then. Your best beer.”

He doesn’t know quite what it is that makes him say what he does next, but there’s something about the slightly unsure intensity of this guy, the way he looks directly at Jared as he speaks--no staring or leering or once-overs. It’s a command of presence that asks for no bullshit and in return gives only sincerity. Jared’s not a mind reader but he’s good at reading people, their tells for when they’re angry, when they’re on edge. This guy’s on edge, but he’s not necessarily looking to take the edge _off_ , like every other mouth breather within five hundred feet of them.

“I’m going to warn you right now, our best beer tastes about as good as your worst piss,” Jared says, dropping the heavy Texas drawl, because it suddenly feels completely fake to use it. “And that’s _if_ it happens to still be cold.”

Maybe it’s the dropping of the accent, maybe it’s Jared’s bone dry line delivery, but whatever reason, the stranger’s expressionless mask comes alive, the threat of a smile tugging at his lips, his eyes no longer assessing, suddenly glittering with amusement.

They’re nice eyes, Jared thinks, and feels guilty about it a second later.

“This might be hard to believe,” the guy leans back in his chair a bit, notably easing into the space of the club, glancing up at the low ceilings, the tacky disco balls and pink strobe lights, “But that’s exactly what I need right now.”

There’s no innuendo in it whatsoever, the guy doesn’t drag his eyes up and down Jared, he actually sounds sincerely grateful for the chance to drink piss flavored water and it’s…

It’s the first conversation Jared has had in this place that hasn’t felt threatening and wasn’t with his co-workers.

“I’ll get right on it, then,” Jared says, offering a kind smile as he scrawls down the order. “Best burger of your life and fresh from the tap piss, coming right up.”

“Can’t wait,” the stranger replies politely, and those nice eyes apparently have crinkles, without a single trace of suggestion in them.

Jared walks back to the kitchen, feeling a bit like a kid, giddy because the popular boy in school noticed him. Milo raises an eyebrow, then smirks. “Dude, who the hell is _that_?”

Jared glances over his shoulder, and though the stranger’s across the bar, Jared can make out the shape of his shoulders, broad, well built, as he removes his suit jacket--and it’s a nice fucking jacket--and drapes it over the back of his chair.

“I have no idea,” Jared responds, cracking the beer cap on the counter and pouring it into a tall glass that he’d pulled from the freezer where they keep them cold. “But he didn’t make a pass at me, nor has he done the same to any of the girls, so the dude can stay as long as he likes.”

Milo gives him a furtive look, and Jared chooses to ignore it, slapping down the order for the burger and coming out from behind the bar and heading back for the stranger.

“I did my best to make it cool, I hope room temp is okay,” he says apologetically, and again the stranger chuckles.

He sets the beer down and tries not to eye the stranger’s forearms as he unbuttons his sleeves and rolls them up to his elbows. Wherever this guy is from, there’s money there, because Jared has longingly stared in enough department store windows (because wishful thinking was all he could afford these days by way of luxury) to know a well-made suit where he sees one.

“Thank you,” the stranger says.

The club MC gets on the mic and announces Alexis’ routine _Sexy Lexi_ , and Jared is suddenly reminded of where they are, exactly who he is, and what his job entails.

“Um.” Jared clears his throat as the stranger looks up at him politely. He forces himself not to roll his eyes as he says, “This is the part where I ask if you want a lap dance, and who you want it from.”

He’d been expecting an assenting nod or a price inquiry, but the guy’s eyes bugged right out of his head like a cartoon character, like the thought of what actually happens in clubs like this had never occurred to him when he walked in and took a seat.

“Uh,” the guy loosens his tie, “If it’s alright with you, I’d rather just uh... watch from a distance, if that’s okay. I’d be happy to tip any of the dancers, just say the word, but I’m not particularly in the mood for private attention tonight.”

Jared can’t tell if it’s the polite usage of the term ‘dancers’ as opposed to ‘strippers’ that does it, or the way the guy seems to be positively _sweating_ for having to answer the question, but it’s hopelessly endearing to see him stumble through carefully choosing his words for declining. It peaks Jared’s curiosity more than Jared’s curiosity has ever been peaked by a customer. Who _is_ this guy?

“Not in the mood for female entertainment tonight?” Jared teases.

“Not in the mood for female entertainment as a general rule.” The guy says flatly, swiftly buttoning the conversation, just like that.

Heat floods Jared’s face and he means to apologize when Milo calls out an order for another table. Jared leaves to make his rounds, using the distraction as an excuse to give the stranger his open window to storm out, assuming Jared insulted him, but from the corner of Jared’s eye he can see that the guy only settles comfortably, nurses his beer, and even has the decency not to grimace.

Milo eventually calls out the California burger, and Jared takes it, bee-lining over to the stranger’s table.

“Here you go.” He sets the food down. “And uh, sorry if I made you uncomfortable by pushing the lap dance thing. I would say it was unprofessional but given that it was part of my training--”

“No harm done,” The stranger says. “There was nothing I said that I felt uncomfortable with.”

“Still,” Jared apologizes, “I often forget what it’s like to talk to a human being in this place, most customers are either throwing the cash before I can ask, so I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“On the contrary.” The stranger picks up his burger, gingerly lifts the bun and slathers a layer of Dijon on the inside. “This might be the best conversation I’ve had all week. That probably says more about how shitty my life is than how odd this conversation is, but trust me when I say that after the day I’ve had, you couldn’t possibly say anything to offend me.”

He takes a bite of the burger, and Jared’s delighted to watch him talk around a mouthful of food, apparently starving, “And to be honest, with food like this, you couldn’t offend me if you _tried_.”

Jared grins, doesn’t realize until a few beats later how stupid he probably looks, standing there with his empty tray, smiling down at a total stranger who’d wandered into a seedy strip club at eleven o clock at night.

“Well,” Jared bows his head a bit, “Enjoy your meal, and your privacy. I’ll tell the girls to steer clear.”

The stranger nods in thanks, and Jared’s off again, bussing a table over on the other side of the stage.

The next hour or so of the shift is more par for the course of how work usually goes for Jared. He takes orders from swaying drunkards, grits his teeth as men twice his age order lap dances, generally keeping their hands off but talking to the girls like they own them. The evening wears on and Jared starts to feel the strain in his back, the exhaustion prick at his eyes, but mostly, he’s aware of how the stranger hasn’t left the club, only orders another huge side of fries with another beer, and talks to Jared.

Talks to Jared a lot, actually.

It’s small snatches of conversation, general banter and light hearted small talk, completely innocent, but it’s quickly becoming a practically enjoyable night at work. He’s just returning with the guy’s third beer and wondering to himself what exactly is happening in this moment, when the stranger leans forward on the table. The two beers had hardly loosened him at all, but he now looks up and gives that small, hint of a smile every time Jared walks over to his table, and Jared would be lying if he said he didn’t get a little thrill each time he did.

It’s as Jared’s billing him for the food, but keeping the tab open for the drink, knowing he’s got only thirty minutes left until he’s done here for the night, and almost regretting it. Almost, except for the fact that there’s a bed with Jared’s name on it and he can almost feel his pillow singing to him a siren song.

“Well, I’ll be clocking out pretty soon and Sandy will be taking over your alcoholic needs.”

“So soon?”

“Buddy, I’ve been here way too long to be anywhere within the realm of ‘so soon’.” Jared jokes, cocking a hip. “But for what it’s worth, you’re one of the better customers I’ve had here, and I hope you have a nice stay in Vegas.” He turns to get the bill to another table.

“Wait.”

Jared turns, and the man looks a bit out of his element again, like he’d been when he’d arrived a few hours ago. “I sincerely hope this isn’t too much of a come on, because I’m sure that’s the last thing you want, and I _really_ hope I don’t seem like a complete fucking jackass right now, but whenever your shift is over, I’d love to have your company a little while longer.” The stranger shrugs, all polite self-deprecation. “No lap dances required.”

It takes a bit for Jared to notice that he’s been staring stupidly at the guy for some time now, doesn’t even realize until the guy says, “You know what, forget I said anything, I apologize, have a good evening-”

“Sorry,” Jared stutters, thrown more by his stuttering then by the question itself. Jared doesn’t babble. Jared doesn’t stumble over words. Jared’s got a two option answer to any sort of proposal made in this joint and it typically rests somewhere in the realm between “No” and “fuck you”.

“It’s not you, it’s uh. I’m flattered, truly I am. But um, I try to keep work professional.”

The stranger raises a well trained speculative eyebrow, obviously perplexed as to how anyone could ever consider The Roadhouse anywhere remotely near ‘professional’, and Jared’s half inclined to agree with him. He nods and takes the seeming blow to his pride with grace, and Jared almost starts to regret the rejection.

Until the guy slides a hundred dollar bill over the table. It’s crisp edge brushes Jared’s knuckle.

Jared balks as if he’s been burned, pride and anger rearing its head. “Are you… _bribing_ me to sit with you?” Jared glares, ready to shelve this guy right along with the others into the ‘men are scum of the earth’ evidence box.

“What? No!” The guy looks insulted that Jared would even suggest such a thing, as if he’s not the one holding out a hundred dollar bill. “That’s your tip. I know a rejection when I see one. I may be the loser who came to the seedy strip club alone but I’m not _that_ much of an asshole.”

“This is a one hundred dollar tip.”

“It was good service,” the stranger says, again, totally sincere, without a hint of innuendo in the statement.

“Right.” Jared replies, feeling awkward and prickly, more vulnerable than he has in a long time, for reasons he doesn’t quite understand.

“Look. I swear I want nothing more from you than your conversation. It’s been a rough night--a rough life really--but it was nice to come to a shitty place like this and forget who I am for a bit, and most of that is owing to your company. So, keep the tip. But should you change your mind, the offer still stands.”

 _A rough night, a rough life, really._ The echo of those words from earlier, the exhaustion Jared hears in them, is enough for Jared to believe him. He takes the tip, not exactly sure what the fuck is happening but choosing not to question it. This will keep his fridge full for at least two months if he budgets wisely. He’s prideful, sure, but he’s not going to turn down that sort of tip. Then he’d just be a moron.

“Thank you,” he says softly, trying not to stare at the crumpled bill as he folds it neatly and tucks it into his pocket, so accustomed to singles as he is.

“No,” the stranger says, with that same simple sincerity that he’s had all night, “Thank you.”

The order-up bell dings again, and Jared walks back to the kitchen, trying not to feel like he’d just sidestepped a window of opportunity.

\--

When one am rolls around some time later, Jared practically tears up in relief. There are kinks within the kinks of his shoulders, and he can feel an impending headache from the subwoofer and the strobe lights, the telltale sign of a double shift. He clocks out with a salute to Milo and a kiss on Lexi’s cheek as she heads out the door too, gabbing about where she’s going to take her kids on her day off tomorrow.

It’s one am, and Jared’s free. For the next seventeen hours or so he doesn’t have to so much as think about this place, and in his book, that’s a pretty decent position to be in life.

It’s one am and he is so out of here, yet Jared finds himself stopping just behind Clif’s shoulder at the door, swiveling his head back around to catch one last glance of the mysterious stranger.

It’s one am, and the stranger’s still there, slightly drooped over and nursing his beer like an un-watered flower. The club is mostly empty by now, but it’s one am and he’s not showing any signs of leaving, the slightly lost expression working its way into his face again.

“You comin’ Jared?” Lexi’s jangling her car keys; his ride home, because he doesn’t have money to afford a car and the buses don’t run this late.

It’s one am, and Jared should leave.

“God dammit,” Jared mutters, and before he can wrestle with his common sense any longer, he’s apologizing to Lexi with a quick excuse and ambling back inside and over to table eight. He swings a leg over the chair opposite from the guy and tries to play it casual, but the buzzing club sound’s fading to background fuzz as the stranger looks up, and smiles fully for the first time since their meeting.

It nearly knocks Jared flat, the force of that smile, makes him almost stop in his goddamn tracks with that flash of straight teeth, and laugh lines that crinkle about the eyes. It’s the smile that—Jared is positive—has charmed this guy into many a girl’s pants. Or, guy’s pants, if his earlier insinuation was anything to go by. Either way, it winds Jared, the kind of sensation that he hasn’t known since he was seventeen and first experiencing what it was like to bask in the open interest and enjoyment of attention, warmth buzzing under his skin and chasing the exhaustion away.

 _Jesus_.

“You came.” The stranger smiles impossibly wilder.

“You’re on borrowed time, mister,” Jared says, stealing a cold fry off his plate and swirling it the abandoned pool of ketchup. “I can only spend so many hours in this place before I actually start to go batshit crazy, so I expect your company to be just as good as mine apparently is.”

“I can do that.”

“For starters,” Jared pops another fry in his mouth, and debates ordering a burger on the house for himself, “Who the hell are you?”

It’s apparently a loaded question, even though all Jared really wants is a name. The guy quietly assesses Jared, like Jared could actually be a threat, like maybe he isn’t sure what the answer is to that question himself. But then he appears to throw caution to the wind.

“I’m Jensen.” He offers his hand, and Jared shakes it, focuses very hard on maintaining eye contact and not being intimidated by the warmth and coarseness of his grip.

“Jared,” Jared replies in kind, and because he’s to-the-point and no-bullshit and really too tired to be professional anymore, he asks, “Now, of all the strip joints, in all the towns, in all the world, what kind of life crisis leads you to a shithole such as this?”

The stranger—Jensen—smiles again, this time slow and conspiratorial, and Jared does his best not to think _I’m in trouble_ , like the most cliché human being on the planet.

\--

It goes like this:

Jared orders a burger for himself and Jensen gets another two shitty beers and Jensen tells Jared about himself in the vaguest way possible, and for the first time ever, Jared doesn’t mind the somewhat shady lack of specifics. Jensen had a bad week at work, needed a place to blow off steam, and didn’t want to go to a single place where people might know him. This of course gives Jared the sense that Jensen is someone important, definitely in politics or Wall Street levels of business, but he doesn’t ask and Jensen doesn’t offer.

And still, despite the general lack of actually getting to know each other, it’s some of the best conversation Jared can remember having had in a long time.

“And what brings _you_ here?” Jensen asks, “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but this really doesn’t feel like your scene.”

Jared shrugs. “Ah, it pays the bills. I’m looking for better stuff, it’s hard to get something substantial without a degree.”

He doesn’t mention the dedicated two hours he puts in each day applying to jobs around the city, trying to find anything that isn’t a waiting gig, or something in any of the clubs on the Strip.

“College?”

He shakes his head. “High School.”

Jensen has the good sense to school his face into something other than horror, but from the looks of his suit alone the guy probably graduated from both undergrad and grad school, most likely Ivy League, so Jared doesn’t judge him for it.

“Was that by choice?” Jensen asks a moment later.

“Is anything in life?” Jared takes a long sip of beer, relishing in its acrid taste. “I realized pretty early on that I never had a silver spoon to nurse on. I dropped out of school early so I could work, money always seemed to take priority over education.”

“That’s not how it should be.”

“But that’s how it is.” Jared shrugs. “I’ve made peace with it. Doesn’t mean I’m settling for this as my guts and glory, but it’ll do until I find something more permanent. I can’t imagine being stuck in a job I hate this much for the rest of my life. I can’t even imagine being stuck in this town for the rest of my life. I’d probably kill myself.”

It comes out sounding a little too intense on Jared’s part, so he raises his bottle in toast with a cajoling smile, “Here’s to leaving Las Vegas, am I right?”

Jensen smiles tightly, and there’s a story somewhere in the way he says, “I’ll drink to that” and clinks his bottle neck to Jared’s, but again, it’s none of Jared’s business, and he’s content to leave it just so.

\--

It goes like this:

Jared fixes them a few more heavy drinks, which they then chase down with tequila shots. It’s not enough to get either of them shitfaced, because Jensen’s apparently done his prep work for the big leagues and Jared’s learned to hold his alcohol well even when he _feels_ shitfaced. Exhaustion and cocktails combined work the both of them into a lighthearted mood, and what started off as the getting to know you game quickly becomes a contest.

“Moi?” Jared grins, loose limbed and swaying only a bit, “Hidden talents?”

“You have to have something.”

“I can tie a cherry stem knot with my tongue, does that count?”

“Show me,” Jensen says, and Jared smiles, pops the maraschino from his glass into his mouth, swallows the cherry and ties the stem in thirty seconds flat, sticking it out for Jensen to see. Jensen applauds, even gives a wolf whistle that mixes in with the atmosphere around him. An atmosphere Jared is gradually forgetting the more they talk.

“And yours?” He leans back, tucking the cherry knot into a napkin.

Jensen smiles, leans forward across the table into Jared’s personal space. It’s a flirtation, Jared knows it, knows exactly what he’s doing when he plays along. His lips look soft. Jared tries not to stare directly at them.

“I can make people disappear,” Jensen whispers, a few scant inches away from Jared’s mouth.

“Bullshit.” Jared guffaws, and Jensen laughs, sits back down.

“You may not believe me, but I can. Real Houdini shit. Not a trace.”

Jared’s positive he’s playing coy, but the enigmatic set of that soft looking mouth suggests something a little more different, a little more knowing. But then the most recent tequila shot hits Jared in a sudden rush of blood and he contentedly lets go of the subject, lets Jensen get away without forcing him to display that particular talent.

Although something tells him Jensen actually _can_ do it.

\--

It goes like this:

The initial bubbly joy of shots fades into the more lulling deflation of alcohol, as one am stretches to three am, as Jensen’s tie loosens and Jared’s muscles unwind, as Jensen’s dodgy walls and vague details dip into something a little more true. And while Jared is exhausted, he’s paying rapt attention, the two of them leaning towards each other across the table, less for intimacy and more because there’s no other way to be at three am and drunk.

“Did you ever feel like there was a problem you couldn’t fix?” Jensen picks at the damp label on his most recent beer bottle, rolls it between his thumb and index finger. “Like no matter what you do, there will always be collateral for you to deal with after?”

“Yeah,” Jared says simply, thinking of his mom, thinking of the look on her face when he’d signed her away to someone else, because she wasn’t fit to take care of herself anymore, and neither was he. “Yeah, I do.”

“And what did you decide, in the end? How did you fix it?” Jensen looks up at Jared.

Jared dabs at the condensation rings with his napkin, tears it into strips and braids them together as he talks.

“I took the hard way out. It wasn’t easy, there was collateral, but in the end it was the right thing to do. Sometimes it’s not about fixing the problem, because few problems are so easily fixable. Sometimes it’s more about...doing what you know to be right, cutting your losses, and sticking to your guns. And not because you’re prideful, but because you have dignity.”

He didn’t mean to wax philosophical, but Jensen appears to be listening intently, his fingers still where they were fidgeting with his beer label. In the shitty club lighting Jared can make out the green in Jensen’s eyes. It is a bright green, an electrifying green, the kind of green that holds conviction, holds attention. So Jared keeps talking, because he gets the sense that Jensen will know exactly what he’s going on about.

“People always think it’s so easy to stand up for what they believe in. And I’m not talking about voicing an opinion, but actively standing for something, standing against something, in the face of adversity. People always think it’s easy when in fact it’s one of the hardest things we as humans do. But that’s part of the whole human struggle, isn’t it? Finding the dignity and the courage to stand by what you believe in, to fight for it. So I’d say that whatever you believe in to be right, do that.”

He gives it a beat for Jensen to laugh in his face, or finally figure out that Jared actually is a weirdo. Jensen doesn’t.

“You know,” Jensen sets aside his bottle, leans back in his chair once more to look at Jared, _really_ look at him, and this time it is a once over, taking in Jared as he is right in this moment, deliberate and warm and sending a gentle _zing_ down the base of Jared’s spine.

“Of all the strip joints in all the towns in all the world, I’m glad I walked into this one.”

\--

It goes like this:

They make it to four am, and after _three entire hours_ of non-stop talking, Jared begs off and explains that despite all appearances, he really does need sleep to live. Jensen shrugs on his coat, those notable biceps from earlier making a guest appearance in the act, while Jared tipsily fumbles for his cell-phone to call a cab. He’s seconds away from hitting ‘CALL’ when he turns and unceremoniously blurts, “Do you want to come back to my place?”

It’s maybe the craziest thing Jared’s ever done, inviting over a complete stranger that he’s barely acquainted with. But it is four am, and Jared is drunk, and those two things coupled together make the notion of going home to an empty bed for the millionth time feel like an overload on what he could bear for one night.

Jensen blinks, half of his jacket still not on, and Jared tacks on ‘stupidest’ on with the ‘craziest thing he’s ever done’.

But Jensen is nice, and Jensen is funny, if a bit enigmatic. And for the duration of the past few hours it felt _good_ to be a man with another man and leave all the shit at the door. There had been no pretense to this evening thus far, no expectation, no bullshit. Just the two of them drinking shitty alcohol and talking, like real people do.

So maybe Jared wants to do more than that, like real people do.

So maybe he is crazy and stupid.

So maybe he doesn’t really care.

Jensen doesn’t look as disgusted as Jared worried he would, if he’d been more sober, but he does look just slightly confused, even as he steps closer to Jared. “Why? I mean, I had a great time, really I did, but I thought you liked keeping things professional.”

Jared shrugs, feeling weirdly confident, with Jensen’s intense gaze trained only on him. There are gorgeous women just feet away from them gyrating and touching themselves, and Jensen only has eyes for him.

“I’m not averse to bending the rules now and then. Plus,” Jared takes a step closer, reaches out to tug Jensen’s other sleeve onto his shoulder straight, fiddling slightly with the lapel, “Fooling around? It’s kind of fun. And forgive me if I’m wrong, but you look like the kind of guy who could use a little fun.”

Even as he speaks, Jensen’s leaning in, and while his tone of voice remains level his eyes are anything but, flicking down to Jared’s mouth and back again. “I may look it, but I haven’t been that kind of guy for a long time. In fact, I’m not so sure I’m the kind of guy you’d want to fool around with outside of tonight.”

“Well,” Jared smooth’s out the material on Jensen shoulders, “It’s a good thing I only know the guy I met tonight. Because that’s the guy I want to take home with me. I don’t really give a damn about the rest.”

And in the dark corner of the shitty strip club at four am, it’s just the two of them. But Jensen’s still looking hesitant, and while Jared’s not exactly sober, Jared knows a rejection when he sees one.

“Alright then,” Jared nods, ego deflating just the slightest, bracing himself already for the cold empty bed, but not so much that he can’t take it in stride. “Sorry if I overstepped. And for what it’s worth, I enjoyed your company too. Have a good stay in Sin City.”

He’s halfway to the door before he hears: “Wait.”

Jared turns, brightening, but Jensen’s already stepping ahead of him and holding the door open, ever the gentleman, exposing them to the clear, quiet air of a Las Vegas dawn. They talk in the cold while they wait for the cab, breath fogging, and when Jensen removes his jacket to put around Jared’s shoulders, holds the car door open for him to slide in first, Jared thinks--tipsily and indulgently--of Cinderella.

\--

It goes like this:

“Well, this is me.” Jared thumbs through his keys to the right one. Outside the grimy apartment building, the neon lights of Las Vegas are switching off as the sky begins to stain a shade lighter than the black of night. Jared’s jittery and nervous for reasons he can’t explain, but he opens the door and lets Jensen in, too keyed up to back down now.

And after all the talking they’ve done, talking suddenly feels a bit moot in the frankness of the moment. There’s again, no bullshit, no pretenses. Both of them know exactly why Jensen’s here, why Jared asked him here.

It’s kind of a relief that neither of them wastes much time, or tries to treat this as anything other than what it is.

They’ve barely closed the door when Jared’s on Jensen, not wasting time with sweet kisses and slow wading into the one night stand waters. He makes quick work of Jensen’s suit jacket, tie, buttons and all, taking a mere ten seconds to shuck his own jeans and t-shirt off. Jensen, quick on the uptake, finishing the job Jared started and removing his pants. At the sight of naked skin, even drunk and exhausted as he is, Jared’s made painfully aware of the raging hard-on he’s had since they squeezed into the backseat of the cab.

“You clean?” Jared asks, no time for small talk when he’s this turned on and this eager to find release.

Jensen nods curtly, and Jared’s on him again, the two of them tripping their way across the three foot kitchen to the tiny bedroom, and Jared hopes the guy is sufficiently distracted enough not to notice how pitifully compact and rundown his place is.

But something tells Jared, judging by the choked off noise Jensen makes when Jared presses their groins together with a slow roll of hips, that he doesn’t really mind.

Jared’s not always this forward in the bedroom, especially not with people he’s just met, but there’s something about the abandon of it all that makes him a little braver, a little sexier, a little bossier as he shoves Jensen backwards until the backs of knees hit the mattress.

Jensen doesn’t seem to mind that, either.

They fall to the bed, and while Jared’s aware the guy’s certainly packing something, he’s mostly too tired to flip the lights on and really look, and a bit too tipsy to think it’ll do any good for what’s already a pretty impressive hard-on. He tries relishing in the little things, lavishes open mouthed kisses on the Jensen’s neck and shoulders, not bothering to seek his mouth, and nips at his jawline, taking pleasure in the response it brings forth, in the reciprocation. It’s not the best sex Jared has ever had, not by a long shot, because he’s positive the two of them are both too drunk and tired to really make it as such, but he appreciates—more than anything—the intimacy. It’s been awhile since he’s had a partner in bed that paid a whit of attention to him, and Jared hates to admit it, but it’s nice not having to jerk himself off just once, because Jensen fists both their cocks and just like that it’s over, Jared coming with a hiss and burying his face in the Jensen’s neck to cover his gasp. He can’t be sure, but he’s pretty sure Jensen comes shortly after, because he stiffens above Jared as Jared drifts down from his orgasm. Jared touches what skin he can, tries not to think of it as weird or too intimate, though it certainly seems that way upon closer examination. Jensen gasps wetly against Jared’s ear a few more times, pulse gradually slowing, then rolls off abruptly onto his back.

All things considered, it’s far from the worst Jared’s ever had, rather far higher up the scale, nearing best.

They doze for a bit, the air slightly awkward but more exhausted than anything else as they stare up at the ceiling, Jared reaching for the tissue box as the come on his stomach already cooling off and starting to stick.

He lies back to close his eyes. He’ll worry about what to do with the naked man next to him in a few hours, when he can wake up and make breakfast, figure out if this is the kind of guy that’s going to try and rob his whole apartment next visit, if there will be a next visit, that sort of thing.

Before Jared can even open his mouth to ask whether the guy prefers pancakes or eggs, he’s already asleep.

\--

It ends like this:

Jared wakes up alone in the early afternoon, all traces of the evening before erased. The clothes have been gathered, the sheets have been tucked around Jared’s chin. There’s not even a calling card left on the night stand, no phone number scribbled down, not so much as a ‘thanks for the sex’ post-it on the counter.

Like Cinderella after midnight, all pumpkins and mice back in their respective places, glass slippers nowhere to be seen, except with more of a hangover, and Prince Charming skipping out before goodbyes.

Neither surprised nor disappointed, Jared gets up, opens his laptop, clicks over to all his bookmarked job application sites, and makes coffee for one.


	2. Chapter 2

_One Month Later_

 

If work on a regular basis is hell, then work on work on a mid-summer’s day is hell triple squared.

Fuck, Jared _hates his job_.

He’s taking a short breather in the kitchen, standing with the freezer open. The season has ushered in a serious heat wave that ratchets up to the early hundreds in temperature, and even with AC blasting in all vents of _The Roadhouse_ , Jared’s sweating like a pig.

Milo’s shouting at Jared about _defrosting the_ _fucking meat_ _goddammit Jared_ when he gets the email.

_Dear Mr. Padalecki,_

_Thank you for your application to The Fitzgerald Hotel. We have reviewed your application and would love to have you come in for an interview and proficiency exam to test your accounting skills. Please email back promptly or call the number listed below to set up your appointment._

_Hoping to hear from you._

_Genevieve Cortese_  
Secretary  
The Fitzgerald Hotel

Holy shit.

Jared replies to the email with shaking hands. Weeks have gone by, _months,_ and not one place had called him. The interviews he had had were almost pity and courtesy, practically laughed out of the room by the poor state of his resume and his decided lack of references. Jared could take it in stride, worse things have happened to him, but he had reached a sudden unexplained desperation to get out of here, a desperation for _more_ , in which everything almost began to feel petulantly hopeless.

But this was it. He could pass a proficiency test with flying colors if he brushed up at the library the next few nights, switched his shifts out. It would mean going a few weeks without hot water but he could do it. He would.

He had a feeling about this one.

Milo wrestles Jared away from the freezer, and Jared dials the number, heart pounding. This is it. This is the way to a better life, he can feel it in his bones.

\--

“Mr.… Padalecki?”

Jared rises, hoping he doesn’t look too eager, hoping the flood pants he’d borrowed from Milo—he couldn’t afford to rent a business suit—don’t completely show his ankles. There’s a hole in the jacket that only shows if he puts his hands in the pockets, so he makes a point not to do that as he walks over to the pretty looking secretary with the dark hair and the clipboard. He palms the sweat onto the thighs of his pants and hopes to Jesus Lord Almighty above that the slightly thrift store appearance won’t be the thing that fucks him up. The last seventy-two hours have been a constant rehearsal and preparation for this moment, this job. He wasn’t going to be arrogant and think that any amount of preparation was enough.

“That’s me, ma’am.” He holds out a hand, clutching the borrowed briefcase (again, from Milo). “Thank you so much for setting this up.”

“Thank you for coming.” The brunette nods, smiling sweetly, and taking his large sweaty hand with her tiny cool one. “You’ll have to forgive the general state of this office. We’re in the midst of construction for the new hotel, so we had to temporarily rent some space.”

The interview is held at a stuffy office building just a few blocks off the Strip. There is a swamp cooler rattling above Jared’s head and the desks are slightly cluttered together, although there is no one but the two of them, but Jared just got off a double shift and right now this feels like heaven.

“Truth be told, ma’am, it’s one of the nicer buildings I’ve been in recently.”

The woman’s laugh is clear like a bell, and Jared likes her despite not knowing a damn thing about her as she pivots on her high heels and leads her down the hallway. “Please, call me Genevieve. I’m Mr. Ackles’ Personal Assistant.”

It’s a casual title, but Jared can actually hear the capitalization in her voice. Jared’s palms start to sweat again. He’d done his research. The Ackles Family was a huge multi-million dollar conglomerate that owned most of the city in one roundabout way or another, if not by direct ownership, then by political and social influence. It was a goddamn empire, the kind of company that produced kings. And Jared was getting a chance to be a part of it.

“Will Mr. Ackles be joining us?”

Genevieve laughs again, her hair swaying softly with the sound of it. “No, he’s a bit tied up with other business matters. But that’s par for the course. I’ve been conducting all the interviews for this position.”

“You must be quite the formidable assistant to have that much power.” Jared offers playfully, and Genevieve smiles.

“The very best, to quote my boss.”

The conference room she sets Jared up in with the accounting exam has a clear view of the city and its muggy air, and Jared can’t help feeling intimidated by the size of it as he takes the exam in silence, chews on the end of his pencil and tries to ignore Genevieve’s soft but noted presence on the other end of the conference table. He’s done in fifty minutes, which feels terrifyingly short, but he’d double and triple checked his answers, and can’t find anything he’d change, even the ones he had to take a swing at and guess. Genevieve calls a secretary out of the hallway and hands her the test for what Jared can only assume is grading, and then offers Jared a bottle of water, having him sit closer this time.

He watches, almost nervously, as she crosses one cream colored leg over the other and places her elbows on the table, regarding Jared over the steeple of her fingers. This woman in no way carries herself like an assistant.

“So, Mr. Padalecki. What made you want to apply to this job?”

It begins like so, a series of questions and answers that Jared has practiced so many times in the mirror that he can answer them in his sleep. He talks about the mission statement of The Fitzgerald and how he too never believes in a personal best and how he has worked his whole life just to keep the clothes on his back. It is the sugar coated crusts-cut-off version of the American Dream, but it’s the best thing Jared’s got in his arsenal, because he means it with every fiber of his being.

He answers the typical questions in no time flat. Strengths? Enthusiasm, love for learning, ambition. Weaknesses? Experience level, proclivity for overthinking a scenario. He answers the harder question with a bit more consideration, and through every type of question Genevieve remains polite, and warm, and decidedly unreadable. She listens, mostly, smiles and occasionally laughs at his quips and jokes here and there, takes notes on a small yellow pad that had been sitting on the center of the conference table. She doesn’t once glance at Jared’s resume; she appears to have it memorized.

“Two more questions.” She smirks. “I swear it’s almost over.”

Jared chuckles. “Would it be weird if I said I’m having a great time?”

“No, but it does make you a bit of a dork.”

“Fair enough.”

“Alright, well, out of everything that’s been asked of you this interview, what would you like to address that we haven’t discussed?”

His glance darts, helplessly, at the copy of his resume.

“When I was in high school, I had to drop out to take care of my family. Well, my mom, just my mom. She pretty much is my only family. So I never finished high school and I never went to college but I wanted to say that that piece of paper,” he points at the resume, “that’s not me, it’s not what I am capable of. I promise you that if you give me this job, I will be so much more than what I look like on paper.”

Genevieve tips her head to the side a bit, and the silent assessment of her gaze gives Jared a random sense of déjà vu, he can’t quite figure out why.

“You say you dropped out of school to take care of your family. I know from what you’ve said about this company that you’ve done your reading Mr. Padalecki. You know that The Fitzgerald is a family business, and that does not just stem to relations. We take care of our own. So I ask you, how do you define family?”

It could not have been a more cleverly planned question to trip Jared up, and he wonders vaguely if she’d asked it specifically for that purpose. He pauses, bites his lip, allows the bluster and charm and homegrown ease to flicker just a bit. Genevieve doesn’t strike him as the type of woman who will accept a bullshit answer.

“For a long time I thought family was the group of people you’re related to, the group of people you love, and who love you back.” He chews at his lip, “And I think it can be that, but I also think it comes down to loyalty. Your family is the people you don’t abandon, who don’t abandon you, who you stick by until their dying breath. So, in my eyes, family is those who are loyal to you, steady, unchanging in their commitment to supporting you, and vice versa.”

He doesn’t know if it’s the right or wrong answer, he might never get the chance to know, because Genevieve smiles again, shows him out, shakes his hand, tells him they’ll be in contact soon should they decide they want to hire him.

It’s the most he’s going to get, so he says thank you and goodbye and makes it all the way to the elevator doors before he lets the crushing sense of defeat start to creep into his lungs, making the air tight and hard to breathe.

It’s okay. It’s alright. He’ll get it next time. Next interview. He’ll practice harder, he’ll be better, he’ll save up and he’ll get a fucking real suit and a real fucking briefcase. He won’t play his hungry heart so readily on his sleeve.

Jared knows, in an offhand way, that he will be fine. He’s healthy, well fed on most days of the week, and has a roof over his head. Things could be worse.

And yet the thought of spending more weeks of double shifts and drunken assholes makes him want to scream with frustration.

He’s so busy trying to keep that scream from coming out that he makes it all of five blocks away before he’s realized his phone is ringing. He doesn’t check caller ID, positive it’s his boss or his landlord or someone else come to suck his remaining will to live away. He can’t be bothered to care.

“Hullo,” he says dully.

“Mr. Padalecki? Hi, it’s Genevieve from The Fitzgerald. I hope I didn’t catch you too late so you’d have to drive back out here.”

Jared slowly stops in his tracks, confused. “Drive back out where?”

“Well to the office, silly! Your proficiency test scores were off the charts, your interview was stellar, so if it’s all the same to you we’d like to have you come in and discuss a few non-disclosure agreements and contract negotiations. But if this is a bad time and you’re busy—“

“No! God no,” Jared’s already hitching up the briefcase higher. “I’ll come back right now. I’ll be there in ten.”

Genevieve hangs up happily and Jared sprints five blocks on cloud nine. He did it. He got it.

By the end of the day, Jared doesn’t know what is more surreal: Genevieve’s warm welcome as he comes back into the office, as she introduces him to the other office admin, the phrases tossed around like ‘salary’ and ‘contract’ and ‘health benefits’, or the beautiful, so goddamn beautiful poetry of getting to march into _The Roadhouse_ an hour late to his shift, kiss all the girls goodbye, pound Milo once on the back, then walk over to the boss, throw down his apron and say, with all the dramatic effect that he’d always dreamed of, “I fucking quit.”

\--

He’s so busy packing up all his things that he almost forgets that it’s Thursday. Jared curses his forgetfulness, scrounges the measly change from his pocket and dashes outside to the nearest bus stop. His back aches from lifting all his boxes of stuff—part of his contract with the hotel states that he has the option of moving into a permanent suite within the hotel, and Jared didn’t even think twice before accepting—and he welcomes the repose to be found in the grimy seat of the Las Vegas public transport, closing his eyes for the route he’s memorized like the back of his hand by now.

Past the strip, out of the city, to the very suburbs of the suburbs, stacked up against the purple mountains of Nevada, interspersed amongst the rest of Las Vegas’ retirement community, unheard of but not nonexistent in its presence. He doesn’t need to double check which bus he’s on or set a timer for when he gets there. He’ll know it by the slightly cleaner smell of the air, the decided lack of city noise.

Cool air greets Jared as he steps off the bus, walks the two blocks from the bus stop and up the small pavement pathway, leading through the front walk way and the gravel encased gardens, the lily pond. The place looks as serene as it did the first time Jared walked through the small latch gate, and it still brings the same fluttering of guilt into his stomach. Beautiful though it is, he’s every bit aware that she regards this place as a prison, and would happily tell him so any day.

He signs himself in at visiting hours, and the caretaker is kind enough to pretend like she hasn’t seen him there every other Thursday for the last seven years.

They repainted the visiting hours room, a pale aquamarine that has a calming effect rather than the warm peach that had been there the last time he’d come. He watches, aloof, as others in the room reunite. Teenagers crying into their parents’ shoulders. A man greeting his wife with shadows under his eyes and track marks along the meet of his arms, their baby girl laughing and squealing between them, reaching with grabby hands for her father. It paints the picture of absolute normalcy in a town where everything seems otherwise.

Jared takes his usual seat, by the window overlooking the garden. She’s always liked gardens.

In his haste to make it here on time for visiting hours, he’d forgotten to grab a book to read while he waits, so he looks out the window and lets his thoughts wander. He feels nervous in a way he hasn’t been since the first day of school in Elementary. The job isn’t going to be easy, and he’s still got to tour his new home, meet his fellow co-workers—apparently Jared will be working straight from the hotel, not just the off-site admin offices—and most importantly, his new boss. Alan Ackles, from the limited research Jared has done, is a hard man to get anything by. Jared doesn’t have a chance if he fucks up within his first few weeks, so whatever moments he’s not packing the past week, he’s been studying up on accounting, brushing up on odd mergers and transfers, the sort of stuff that may or may not come up on the business of Hotels on the Strip.

It feels like a new chapter of his life is beginning. He’s just got to make one last stop before he does.

“She’s doing well this week.” Loretta, the nurse who does know Jared by name and isn’t afraid to regard him as such, walks over to him, patting his shoulder. “She contributed to her group therapy, she even came to the communal movie night.”

“That’s good.” Jared smiles politely. “Everything’s okay with the bills, no price raises for the care?”

“No, that’s all good baby.” Loretta sits across from Jared, regards him with kind eyes. He can see the pity behind the kindness, and he doesn’t want it, but Loretta has never been anything but kind, and unquestioning of Jared showing up like clockwork every other Thursday of the month.

He knows why she’s here. He shouldn’t shoot the messenger.

“Guess she’s tired today, good week wore her out?” His own smile feels thin as paper.

Loretta laughs. “She’s not an easy one to wear out, your mother.”

“Well, in case I miss her,” Jared paints another smile on his face, forces himself not to crumple where he sits—because this is just an ordinary Thursday, no different from the last, “Could you tell her that I got a new job? I just got hired at the Fitzgerald hotel, as a financial consultant. So I’ll be starting my job over there on Monday.”

“I’ll be sure to tell her. She’ll be delighted.” Loretta smiles warmly, and then looks away as another nurse gestures at her to come over. “I’ve got to go, but have yourself a wonderful afternoon, baby.”

Jared nods, looks back out the window, allowing himself to slip into the semi-lucid state of rest with eyes open as visiting hours slowly slip by.

It’s nearly dusk, the room is empty, when Jared decides to head home. Loretta will pass on his message, and he’ll pretend that she really is sorry she couldn’t make it out of bed today.

Just another Thursday, no different than the others.

\--

Jared barely sleeps the night before he moves into the hotel, too keyed up to really consider that rest might actually be a good thing for his first unofficial day on the job. He double checks his packing—the totality of his belongings fits into one duffle bag and two large suitcases. It’s a bit pathetic, but Jared’s grateful for the easy move. He runs through a few more accounting problems and naps for a bit before his alarm goes off, signaling time for one last freezing cold douse in his miserable shower and one last meal of flavorless oatmeal. He doesn’t waste time on cherishing the moment; Jared is more than ready to get the fuck out of dodge.

He shows up at The Fitzgerald at noon sharp, having returned Milo’s suit to him, he’s in his best (ie—least threadbare) t-shirt and jeans, lugging all his bags straight off the bus and onto the curb. Genevieve stands there outside the entrance, dressed in an elegant business suit, her hair loose around her shoulders. Her face brightens when she spots Jared, and she bounces over in a pair of austere looking heels, pecking both of his cheeks in greeting.

“You made it!”

“Hello Miss Cortese.” Jared grins, polite.

“Jared, you’re going to have to start calling me Genevieve eventually. You know that, don’t you? Between us, I tend to prefer Gen anyway.”

“Gen,” He says, and then finds himself stupidly blushing. Gen laughs and slips her arm through his. She snaps her fingers and a bellboy seems to appear out of thin air, lifting all of Jared’s bags onto a cart.

“They’ll take those right up to your room while I show you around your new home, tell you all about the hotel. Some of the rooms are still under a bit of renovation, so the guest population has been limited these past few weeks, but we’re all set to officially pick up business on Monday. C’mon,” she tugs him into the revolving doors, “You’re going to _love_ what I’m about to show you.”

Unsurprisingly, Jared does.

“Welcome, Mr. Padalecki, to the Fitzgerald.”

He can’t help it; his jaw drops in unadulterated awe as they are deposited into the lobby. The hotel is gigantic, grandiose, with cascading chandeliers bigger than anything Jared’s ever seen, intricate glass teardrops twinkling in the light. The building has all the brash and over the top aesthetic of some film straight out of the roaring twenties.

The old movie house vibe of the lobby reads to the smoky club vibe of the Casino. The waitresses walk around in fish eye stockings and sleek dresses with dangling tassels, long strings of pearls around their necks and feather bands around their heads. Some have thin, long cigarette holders dangling from cherry red lips as they deliver drinks to those gambling. The card dealers at the craps tables all wear low hanging fedoras, pin striped suits, argyle ties.

It’s like stepping into a speakeasy straight out of vintage Hollywood, all glitz and glamour and swizzy jazz filtering through the background. It has none of the grandiose showiness of the hotels on the Strip, but rather speaks to the sleek and simple, ornate instead of decadent, tactful rather than over the top. The Casino leads to the ballroom, where Gen explains they host dance nights, with live Jazz music. Mr. Ackles, she explains with a wry smile, is a huge jazz enthusiast.

There are crystal chandeliers hanging in every other room, staircases that sparkle with a fine sheen, polished wood floors. The dance floor is well worn, and Jared can’t even imagine what kind of dancing made those scuffmarks appear. Nothing about the hotel feels like it’s made in the year 2016, but rather a solid century ago. Even the Casino, with all its modern technology of slot machines, looks a bit anachronistic in its low lighting, its smoky atmosphere, its staff.

Gen takes Jared through conference rooms and more private poker rooms for tournaments. The Fitzgerald, Gen explains, serves to be the centerpiece that balances two things: business and pleasure. She drags him through the kitchens, talking animatedly about how The Fitzgerald has always been an oasis in the Sin City community, being the holding place of many game changing business meetings with men and women of great importance. The hotel had always been the lesser-known gem of the Strip, but it wasn’t until recent management changes that it had skyrocketed into popularity. The way Gen sees it, other hotels have their atmosphere, their gimmicks, their fake painted skies in their ceilings, but the Fitzgerald was a real relic, a building that wasn’t ashamed of its age, but rather embraced the vintage, owned it. People were drawn to that, admired it even. There was something romantic to be found in an appreciation for simpler times.

“So? What do you think?”

Jared grins so hard he thinks his face might break. “I think this is the most beautiful hotel I’ve ever seen. We’re going to tear the Strip _apart_.”

Gen laughs at that, loops her arm through his, leading him back down to the lobby, going to the offices behind the front desk. “Good. Then you’re going to love your suite. Like, I even salivated a bit when I saw it. There are a kitchen and mini fridge so you can cook, but before we get up there—I want you to meet your boss.”

She walks Jared through a much more ornate set of offices than where Jared interviewed, sweeping open the door at the end. It’s a pretty simply set up room, and at the center of it is a large oak desk, where Jared can make out the back of someone’s head, presumably the Boss Gen means to introduce him to.

“Jared Padalecki, meet the owner of the Fitzgerald and signer of your paychecks, Mr. Jensen Ackles.” Gen chirps.

The man in the desk chair spins, and Jared’s jaw drops again.

He may have been drunk and running on zero sleep the last time he saw him, but Jared would recognize that chiseled jaw and green eyes anywhere. Even fully clothed and in this grandiose setting, so different from The Roadhouse, it wasn’t a face Jared was likely to forget.

Jared had never thought he’d see the mysterious stranger from that night again. Certainly not here, and certainly not because he was hiring Jared. The man—Jensen—allows his initial shock for a brief second before he’s rising from his desk and holding out a hand.

“Jensen Ackles?” Jared rasps.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Padalecki,” Jensen says, in a tone that Jared recognizes as the one you use on strangers you’ve never met prior, “Genevieve speaks very highly of you, we’re very excited to have you be part of the Ackles Family.”

“But—”

“My father’s legacy is a very important one to me, and having only risen to take the reins two years ago, we’re still pretty young in the business of running things. I’m hoping that your proficiency and ambition will guide us towards a brighter future for the company.”

“Uhm.” Jared swallows dryly, forces the lie out as he takes Jensen’s hand. “Thank you.”

It is that same, unmistakable firm grip. Jared can’t believe his fucking luck.

“Alright,” Gen coos, “You’ll have more time to meet the rest of the gang when you start on Monday, but for now I want to introduce you to your living space, we’ve got you one of the suites on the upper floors, but if you prefer something larger I can look into an upgrade with Hospitality. Come along, Jared. And Jensen, don’t forget we’re on for our meeting tonight at seven.”

“As if I could forget.” Jensen smiles with all the politeness and charm, but his are fixed on Jared, even as Gen drags Jared out of the room. “I remember everything, Gen.”

“Yeah, yeah,” She calls, “It’s still my job to remind you. See you in a few.”

The tour includes a few more walk-throughs of ballrooms, where a jazz band is tuning up their instruments and running their scales in preparation. Jared does his best to absorb Gen’s talking about the history of the hotel, and why they decided to recently upgrade upon Jensen’s taking his father’s position, but most of the information goes in one ear and out the other, so fixated is he on the look on Jensen’s face, the shock and recognition before it all became boxed up and packaged into something much more contained.

So Jensen hadn’t really lied about himself that night, he’d just never specified to Jared where he worked. Jared never in his life would have imagined that it was here. While it was technically a small town, the kismet of running into Jensen was uncanny, and truth be told, a distraction Jared didn’t need, nor desire. It sent the memory of that night--one Jared had put to rest the second it was over—bubbling up to the surface, making everything seem fresh and recent, from the way they’d chatted the night away, to the way Jensen had pressed against him when they fucked.

It’s a blessing, really, when Gen manages to lead Jared to his room, which is a massive suite- she didn’t exaggerate. The bedroom alone is the size of Jared’s entire apartment, if not bigger. There is a fully stocked kitchen, and a rather impressive array of wardrobe.

“I took the liberty of guessing your measurements and ordering you a few suits. Dry cleaning comes on Saturdays, just leave anything you want done on the side closet near the door. You can have free room service at any time, but I also went ahead and stocked your kitchens with snacks in case you should want them. Let me know if you need anything. Do you think this room will be to your liking? Or would you prefer to live elsewhere in the hotel?”

It’s distraction enough, thank god, Jared realizing it’s the biggest home he’s ever had. Even if this is temporary, even if he’s headed out as soon as he’s got the funds, it’s perfect. Jared can’t help it, he lifts Gen off her feet and spins her around. “It couldn’t be more perfect. Thank you, Gen.”

He sets her tiny body down and she giggles, straightening her blouse where he’d crushed the collar slightly, but she looks pleased.

“You’ve got tomorrow to move your stuff in, explore the terrain, get situated. On Monday morning report to the offices behind the help desk on the first floor. And then the real fun begins.”

“Can’t wait-” Jared begins, and Gen hands him his permanent room card and walks out of the room.

With her exit from the room comes the rush of panic that Jared had been keeping at bay since the very first moment that he saw Jensen’s face. What had been a dream job all of twenty-four hours ago suddenly feels like a trap, the surefire away to put himself in a bad place; that is, under someone else’s thumb. Jared sinks down on the ludicrously soft mattress, biting nervously at a hangnail.

God what is he _doing_? Jared knows better than to put himself in position of powerlessness. He just broke his lease to move here, upended his whole life to live here. Of course, there was no way he’d anticipated that his boss would be the man he’d slept with.

And while it’s true that Jensen hadn’t exactly been an asshole on their night together—in fact, rather the opposite of asshole, from what Jared fondly remembers. But one night doesn’t suddenly mean Jensen’s a good guy by any means; one night doesn’t mean that Jared is _safe_.

He knows that Jensen—Mr. Ackles—could extort him for sexual favors. Harassment cases weren’t exactly unheard of in Las Vegas, and while Jared is willing to put up with a lot of shit to keep a job, he is not willing to put up with putting himself in a position vulnerable to sexual coercion. Even if Jensen is hot as fuck, even if their one night together had been better than all of Jared’s one night stands put together, Jared wasn’t about to consent to something where the person in question signed his paychecks, gave him a place to live, kept him from living on the streets, essentially. But when Jensen propositioned him, would he take the rejection so lightly? Or would he get angry, would he threaten to fire Jared if he didn’t sleep with him? Possibilities swim before Jared’s eyes, making it difficult to think beyond the nasty headache that’s beginning to bloom behind his brow.

Maybe it would be better to quit. Cut his losses before he gets too used to the money and the fancy hotel suite. He could get another crappy waiting job; he could maybe go back to _The Roadhouse,_ have Milo vouch for him to the Boss. His pipe dream of getting out of Vegas will get pushed back another few decades again, until he can get another salary paying job, but that’s okay. It’s okay.

It is not okay. The sudden notion of returning there frankly makes Jared want to throw himself off his crystal encrusted balcony. But he has to do it. He’s not to put himself into anyone’s hands. He’ll be no one’s plaything on beck and call.

He’s just making to grab for his suitcase when there’s a knock on the door.

“May I come in?” Jensen Ackles asks politely from outside.

Maybe he’s not actually that good looking. Jared muses quietly. Maybe alcohol had put a bit of a rose tinted coloring on his image, and now, in broad daylight, he’s perfectly average.

Bolstered by this, Jared opens the door, is dismayed to find that in broad daylight, Jensen Ackles is still positively gorgeous.

And markedly shorter than Jared, which Jared had somehow failed to notice the first time around.

“Suit yourself,” Jared says coolly, stepping aside. Mr. Ackles moves like he was born to be in this room, the casual and natural grace of someone who is neither intimidated nor uncomfortable with present company. It is a businessman’s stance, and Jared realizes with a start that this is who Jensen was trying to get away from that night he came into the bar. This was the person he didn’t want to be seen as.

It perks Jared’s curiosity more than it should, wondering why Jensen wanted so badly to escape someone who seems so confident and put together.

“Do you enjoy your room?” Mr. Ackles asks politely.

“You saw my place,” Jared jokes weakly. “This is markedly better, I think you’ll agree.”

Jensen shows no recollection of Jared’s place whatsoever, merely levels Jared with an assessing, cold gaze. There is none of the warmth or shyness from the bar that one night. This is, of course, an entirely different ballpark.

“I didn’t know,” Jensen mutters, and it takes Jared a second to realize he’s talking to him. “I must not have been paying attention when Gen had me sign the employment documents with your photo ID. I never knew your last name, so you must understand—”

“I didn’t have a clue either.” Jared answers earnestly. “When I’d researched the hotel, it was all pictures of your father. I probably would have seen your name mentioned if I’d looked closer but I did not. Alan Ackles is the face of this company.”

“He was.” Jensen says shortly. “He passed away a few years ago.”

Fuck, how had Jared _missed_ that?

“You took over the hotel.”

“I’ve made a few renovations here and there, but yes. I plan to continue my father’s legacy.” Jensen looks sharply at Jared. “I hope you don’t mind the impertinent question but…”

Jared braces for the inevitability of it. Of Jensen venturing to see if he can get a little action on the side outside of office hours. Of the hopeful request that they can continue where they left off.

“You’re not planning on quitting this job are you?”

Jared shifts nervously, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why, were you planning on firing me?”

“What? No.” Jensen shakes his head as if what Jared said is so shocking. “I just—I know this is a slightly awkward situation and I wanted to clear the air to make sure we could move forward in a professional manner. Besides, Gen has been trying to hire a promising candidate for weeks now, and she’ll have my head if I fire the first one on sight. Your proficiency test was apparently exemplary.”

Whatever Jared had been expecting, it certainly wasn’t that. He still can’t get a read on Jensen’s face, but maybe that’s beside the point after all. Jensen’s aim, however, seems to be the opposite of what Jared thought it would be. Which is a good thing, he supposes. Jensen coming clean with his motives means Jared doesn’t have to quit, and he really really did not want to quit.

He shifts his weight again, feeling restless. “Well, you can tell Genevieve to rest easy. I’m not going anywhere.”

Jensen looks shocked, “You’ll do it?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll take the job.” The way Jensen looks at him, it’s like he’s waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Jared’s arms fall to his sides as he straightens up. “I’m not so arrogant and full of myself that I’m about to walk out on this opportunity. You know my previous employment, so this shouldn’t surprise you.”

Jensen blinks, like Jared had said something that _did_ surprise him, but then he’s covered it up all over again and says. “About that…I have a condition to your employment here.”

“Name it,” Jared prompts, pretty sure he’ll agree to anything that isn’t a sexual favor. He can’t help but think longingly of those zeroes on his agreed payment settlement. He might actually cry when he gets his first paycheck.

“I’d prefer if we kept our…” Here Jensen pauses, and casts another searching glance over Jared as if not quite sure what he’s made of, “…tryst, between the two of us. I don’t often partake in casual sex with strangers, and I definitely don’t bring up personal matters at work. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to keep it that way.”

There’s a subtle threat posed in case Jared may decide it’s not alright with him, but Jensen needn’t worry. Jared merely nods and says, “As long as you promise that we keep things strictly business from here on out. If I work for you, it’s just that. It’s work. It’s my employment. You’re my boss. That night was fun, but let’s not make it more than it needs to be.”

Jensen nods in agreement, almost looks a little relieved. “Glad we could agree on something. Business should never mix with pleasure. Welcome to the family, Jared, we’re excited to have you on the team.”

He steps forward, holding out that same hand from before, which Jared takes, shaking on it.

“Likewise, Boss.”

\--

Over the next week or so, Jared gets to know his co-workers, a rather eclectic and obviously tight knit group of people. It is clear that he’s the black sheep here, but that is only because it’s very clear these people have been working together for _years_ , the easy camaraderie that shows in the comfortable way they move about each other, the way they tease just the slightest bit mean, the only way that best friends can.

Genevieve is the simplest one to pinpoint. And although her official title is ‘personal assistant’, it’s apparently to Jared from his first day on the job that she’s so much more than that, and everyone knows it. She’s one of the few people in the office who seems to be everywhere it once, always on top, not a hair out of place, her stiletto heels click clacking like a metronome as she darts around. She’s closest to Jensen, that’s for sure.

Sam Ferris is the head of Concierge and the General Manager, all the Southern Warmth and Steel of a woman who has seen a lot of shit but will stick by her family by the end. In the five minutes Jared gets acquainted with her, he notes that everyone in the office calls her ‘Mom’, and she doesn’t protest. She’s also the woman who dictates what they serve by way of food, all liquor and kitchens inventory. Jared makes a point to charm her first and foremost, and by the end of day two she’s called him down to the kitchens to sample the newest menu that they’re about to give a try.

Tom & Mike run security detail in the hotel, mostly making sure no one gets too rowdy down in the Casino. Jared refers to them as Tom & Mike because they work as a unit, he’s never really seen one without the other, and they operate as a duo of synchronized snark and hulking muscle mass. Tommy’s definitely more on the sweeter side than Mike, but Jared can tell right off the bat that their ying and yang dynamic is off the charts.

Jared only meets Chris Kane once, but once is enough to leave an impression. He wordlessly enters and exits from Jensen’s office in a matter of minutes, short, but deadly looking, like what he lacks in height he makes up for in brute force. When asked, Gen just grins and goes, “Old friend of Jensen’s, think of him as a legal consultant of sorts.”

Chad Michael Murray is probably the only person that Jared has no fucking clue what he does. He seems to be the resident interloper, and Jared has never really seen Chad in the office unless he’s there to annoy the ever-loving shit out of Gen, or rib Jared, or horse around with Tom and Mike, who apparently have no problems throwing down right in the middle of the hallway. Jared catches Chad bartending in the ballroom one night, another day Chad’s serving as the Chauffeur as Jensen leaves for a meeting across the strip at the MGM Grand Hotel. Jared never really asks what exactly Chad’s official job title is, from the looks of it, Gen herself doesn’t even know why he’s working here.

Danneel Harris is the evening entertainment, as far as Jared knows, but whereas the other members of the jazz band usually don’t interact with the admin staff, Danneel seems to be perfectly at home with strutting into the office like she lives here. She’s a drop dead gorgeous red head, could easily be a model, but something about the way she carries herself belies the glamorous dresses she often walks around in, the immaculate hair and makeup, the smoky purr of her voice. A lesser man would say that Danneel Harris was a woman that was asking for it, but the second she opens her mouth Jared sees the wit and fire behind the façade, the very clear ‘don’t fuck with me’ attitude. She whispers secrets into Gen’s ear like they’re best friends and chastises Chad for his idiotic comments, and when she walks straight into Jensen’s office on the occasional odd day, Jared notices that Jensen always rises from his desk to greet her.

There are few others that Jared has become vaguely acquainted with, who stop by the office to pick up paychecks, or to visit Gen. Alona, the hostess in the Fitzgerald’s in-house restaurant _The Chrome Cat_. Misha, the architect of the hotel still putting the finishing touches on the renovations. Osric, the bellboy who had taken Jared’s bags to his room the day he’d moved in. He didn’t really understand the methodology of why some staff members came into the offices to talk to Gen or meet with Jensen and why some didn’t, but they all seemed three things to Jared: polite, friendly, and close with every single member on the admin staff.

Jared likes them all, based on the small interactions he’s had, the many interactions he’s witnessed. Jensen isn’t often in the office, and if he is, it’s with the door kept closed and the noise level generally quiet. He doesn’t really talk to Jared, doesn’t really look at Jared all that much, and he would be partially annoyed if it didn’t turn out to be exactly what he wanted.

There’s… only one downside to this whole arrangement, really. And it’s that Jared gets the weirdest sense that he’s missing some very important link in between all these people. They move about each other, share space in close proximity, and Jared would think he’d be invited into that sense of closeness with them, being the newest ‘member’ of the family. But there’s an odd hush that falls on the room whenever Jared enters, even if it’s just for the barest of seconds before Chad or Mike or Tom is clapping him on the shoulder, knuckling his head and teasing him in some way or another. Another time Jared walks into the kitchens to ask Sam for some late breakfast, finds Gen and Jensen whispering in hushed tones next to the dishwasher- only for them to begin bickering loudly about mini quiches as hors d'oeuvres the second they see him. Sometimes Chad’s got bruises on his knuckles, and when Jared asks Gen pipes in that Chad loves nothing more than a good bar brawl to bodily throw himself into in some kind of Kamikaze stunt. It’s not that these occurrences and quick cover ups aren’t warranted, Jared is new on the staff, and if these people have personal beef with each other it really is none of his business.

But still, by the end of his first week, he’s got the feeling he’s the odd man out, and not just because he’s the fresh blood. By the end of the second week he’s sure he’s being deliberately lied to about certain things. There’s nothing Jared can do or say that doesn’t sound paranoid, so he keeps his head down and does his work.

The numbers, to Jensen’s credit, have been kept pretty well until now. Jared hasn’t got a clue who the previous accountant was for The Fitzgerald but they’ve done what Jared can consider a pretty bang up job. Jared’s impressed at first, and then unsettled at second.

He sits, late at night, after everyone has gone home, squinting at a spreadsheet. This can’t be right. Jared flicks through the last few pages, chalking it up to exhaustion and bleary eyes, tracks the numbers once more with his finger, adding and subtracting until he comes to the very end of the column of accounts receivable. Still not right. There are transactions between special purpose entities that shouldn’t be there, and the more Jared looks, the more he realizes the SPEs have been in the finances of the company since its beginning.

A spark of dread lights in his stomach. Someone’s embezzling funds from the company.

It’s late, and Jared wants nothing more than to than to go upstairs to his room and sleep this whole day off, but part of this job involved reporting to Jensen as soon as he noticed anything out of the ordinary. This was out of the ordinary. And therefore it meant reporting to his Boss.

He tries the conference room, figures if they’re not there in a late meeting, then he’ll report to Jensen first thing in the morning.

The door is cracked open a fraction, and Jared leans towards the crack, wondering if he should knock first, or try to hear if Jensen is in the room. There’s a flurry of hushed and overlapping voices—angry, trying to stay in control. He can barely make out the differences.

“---this is so fucked up—”

“—what was I supposed to do? I used my silencer, nobody heard a fucking thing. He knew things, he was going to talk!”

“—You weren’t supposed to lose all cool and fucking—”

“---no choice but to move the shipment,” A woman’s voice—Gen’s voice—whispers distinctly above all else, her tone the farthest from panic out of the other voices. “If the others get word of this, there’s no telling what kind of bloodbath we’ll have on our hands.”

“Where are we supposed to hide it, in the hotel?” Another voice, Chad’s perhaps, Jared can’t make out over the rasp of whisper.

“No, but we can’t leave it there. People are onto us, Jen, they know.”

“We can plan what to do with the shipment later. Boss, what should we do with _this_?”

Jared’s stomach leaps into his throat, his pulse racing with an instinctual fear he can’t seem to shake or understand. He can’t see past the tiny sliver of a crack in the door that only shows what Jared assumes is the curtains on the opposite end of the room. What could they possibly be talking about? What was the _this_ Chad was referring to _?_

There’s a pause. Everyone waiting for the Boss to speak. A shifting of feet. A rustle of carpet. An ugly, heavy thump, something dull falling to the floor.

What the _fuck_.

Jared stands, hand closed around conference doorknob, paralyzed.

Finally, Jensen speaks, voice terse and authoritative. There’s an edge to it that Jared’s never heard in it before. “This should have never happened in the first place. Sloppy fucking work. We were supposed to avoid exactly this kind of situation. You know what to do with it, Murray. Cement. The quarry. Go the back way out the kitchens. Sam—”

“I’ll call her.” Genevieve again. More shuffling around the room, another thump on the floor, a soft curse from either Mike or Tom, could be either.

“I’ll make sure the coast is clear,” Chad says, voice moving towards the door and Jared jumps back several feet like he’d been burned, but he’s not quick enough. The door opens, and Jared’s caught in the crosshairs.

He makes every attempt to look as if he’d been leisurely strolling along and caught unawares, but Jared’s only so much of an actor. Chad stops in his tracks, a sudden grin stretching out over his face, even as he narrows his eyes.

“Evening, Jay-Bird. What brings you to this side of the hotel so late at night?”

All the movement and sound in the conference room behind him dims to absolute silence. No one breathes.

Several things happen in the span of a blink-and-you-miss-it second. First, Jared hears—barely audible—a soft, specific click, somewhere behind Chad’s back. Second, he sees the almost microscopic spatter of blood across Chad’s blue tie. Not enough to be incriminating, but clear enough to know it’s not a bad coffee spill or an inkblot. Jared swears he can almost smell it on him.

Third, is the realization that whatever Jared’s about to report, has everything to do with the first to things, everything to do with the tone in Jensen’s voice, with all the secrets he’s felt he’s been out of the loop on.

Chad’s still squinting at Jared, but his grin has almost turned to stone, stiff on his face, and Jared only now realizes that he still hasn’t answered him.

He thinks of all the possible word combinations that won’t get him fired, or worse, in this moment.

“I—uh.” Jared holds up the report, “I had to go over some numbers with Jensen. Something’s been off the last few months. Have you seen him?”

Chad tilts his head and the cold grin turns into a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Nah man, old man Ackles left about an hour ago, probably off hitting the strip for ass already, the sly dog.”

Jared’s heart is still pounding. He knows that every word out of Chad’s mouth right now is a straight up lie, just like he’s pretty sure of everything that’s going on behind that door right now. But he’s still breathing, and doesn’t have a bullet in his brain, so whatever he’s not meant to know, he better stay out of it.

“Right.” Jared nods robotically, “Well, I guess I’ll talk to him tomorrow. But if you see him, tell him it’s urgent, okay?”

“Sure thing Jay-Money. Have a good night.”

He stares at Chad, who doesn’t budge, or make any signs of continuing the conversation. In the conference room, no one makes a sound.

“Yeah.” Jared white knuckles the file, “You too.”

He tries to walk as calmly as he can to his room, mind racing so much he can hardly think straight. He almost forgets to get off on his floor. There are too many questions and too much information to accept in one fell swoop. Jared locks the file in his safe, locks all possible locks on his door. Charges his phone and keeps the dial screen open to 911.

No one bothers him the whole night. No one even bothers to knock.

Even so, it is a long time before Jared can stop staring at the door, let alone calm his mind down enough to fall asleep for anything but a few hours at a time. He can’t bring himself to change out of his suit, prepared to run from the hotel at any moment’s notice.

The next morning he rises out of bed like a shot at the sound of a knock at a door. It turns out to be Sam, rolling a room service cart, pecking his cheek as she delivers him those banana pancakes she’d promised a few days back. Jared smiles and thanks her, chalking his paranoia up to crossed wires, and leaves it at that. Whatever’s happening with his employer, it’s got nothing to do with him.

“Oh.” Sam hands Jared a small envelope. “Mr. Ackles asked me to give this to you personally.”

Jared thanks her again, and holds the door open for her as she leaves. As soon as the door shuts, he nearly tears the note apart in his haste to open the envelope.

_Chad told me you wanted to speak. Out of town for the day on last minute business. Genevieve can address your concerns and questions._

The handwriting is perfectly neat and the tone is perfectly polite. Jared can’t help but get the feeling that he’s being laughed at.

\--

Jared doesn’t go to Gen with his concerns, like he probably should, nor does he quit his job, like he probably should. He’s realized by the time he reluctantly ambles down to the office that if they didn’t want him to know what they were up to; he’d probably be dead by now. Assuming that’s the kind of stuff these people did, because it certainly seemed like it.

He decides it’s in his best interest to keep doing his job. Unfortunately, Gen’s taken it upon herself to talk to him anyway, as he gets to his desk the next morning to find her perched on the corner, a coffee mug in her hands, smiling sweetly at him.

“Hey there early bird!” She chirps.

“Hey yourself.” Jared smiles, sits down at his desk. “You need something before I get started on today’s inventory of the hotel?”

“Actually, yes.” Gen’s tone softens a bit, and she sets down her mug on a note pad. “Jensen had to step away on some urgent business late last night, but I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind relaying whatever you wanted to talk to him about to me.”

She says it in a perfectly polite tone, but something about the phrasing makes Jared feel like he absolutely has no choice.

“Between you and me, I’d rather not,” Jared says softly, trying to refrain from clenching his jaw. “Sorry.”

“Of course, of course.” Gen smiles fleetingly. “I wouldn’t want to overstep.”

“Right.”

Silence. Genevieve takes a sip of her coffee. She usually takes it with cream and sugar. Today it’s black. Jared begins to work, even with her perched on his desk, because he’s getting the sense that she’s trying to suss him out, figure out whatever his motives might be. Truthfully, he doesn’t even know himself. His main objectives revolve around making it through the day alive and with his salary preferably intact.

He gets to work.

He’s aware of her watching as he goes about, assessing more spreadsheets and entering data, sifting through the accounting programs on his computer. She seems to be deep in thought, but voices nothing as she quietly sips her coffee, watches Jared do essentially nothing but putter about and type things into the computer. Something about her assessing gaze feels distinctly familiar, and Jared finds himself wondering who learned the expression from who, Jensen or Genevieve. If she’s waiting for him to say something, he’s not about to budge. What happens next will likely determine whether or not he sticks around for the time being. Right now, he’s not finding many job perks apart from the money. He distracts himself from the probing dark eyes in this way, assembling a list of pros and cons for this job, rather than paying her any heed. In the span of time it takes to make two lengthy columned lists in his mind’s eye, Gen has finished her coffee, and turned directly towards him, smile back in place.

“Do you remember what you said to me,” Gen speaks slowly, “When I asked you during your interview what family is to you?”

Jared lifts his eyes from the spreadsheet to her face. She really is beautiful, a woman of charm and character. That fact seems dangerous now. “I remember.”

“Do you still believe in your answer, about loyalty?”

Jared blinks, chooses his words carefully. He answers honestly. She doesn’t strike him as the type that will take bullshit, or not see through it. He thumbs at a stack of post-its, considering and careful. “Yes,” And then, at her doubtful gaze, “I’ll let you know directly if my answer changes, shall I?”

Another long look of quiet contemplation, and then Gen nods, like the answer satisfies her. She quietly pulls out a small burner phone in a plastic case out of her pocket, hands it to Jared wordlessly. He looks it over like it’s a time bomb.

“There is only one number in this phone,” Gen says. “You do not give it out. You do not write it down. But if you ever need me, wherever you are, you turn on this phone and you _call_ me. For whatever. I won’t even hesitate to help you, doesn’t matter what the situation is.”

“Are you expecting for there to be situations where I will need you that badly?” Jared raises an eyebrow, but he tucks the burner phone in his bag.

Gen smiles enigmatically. “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best, I always say.”

“Why are you giving this to me now?”

“Because this is what it means when you are part of this family. You’ve got the entire team at your six. No questions asked. And we hope that you have the same for us.”

Coming from anyone else, the statement would seem like a threat, but from Gen it just sounds earnest and true.

Maybe that’s why Jared pulls the file out of his bag. Or maybe he’s just that stupid.

“Then, since you’ve got my six, here’s me having yours, because I like working with you, Gen. And if you don’t know, then you should. There’s enough evidence in this file alone to get you all accused of some serious embezzlement charges. I don’t even have an actual accounting degree and I caught it. So whatever is going on here—and frankly I’m not even sure I want to know—Jensen and the rest of you need to get it under wraps. Because money’s being pushed around, but it’s not being subtracted from the company one bit. Which gives me cause to believe that there’s under the table business going on behind closed doors. And if I, a high school dropout, can figure that out, then you guys have got no hope for when someone with an actual education picks up on it.”

Gen’s face hasn’t really changed, neutral as ever, but her skin has paled several tones. He hands her the file and walks off to get his own cup of coffee.

\--

Jared finishes up his workload as quickly as possible, not really wanting to deal with Gen’s quiet attentiveness on his every move, nor the rest of the glances he’s getting from Chad, Mike and Tom, pretty much anyone who Jared had once thought he’d known and understood.

He takes an extended lunch, makes to go to the rehab center for the Thursday visiting hours. Gen, all too cheerily, insists that Chad drive Jared, seeing as Jared doesn’t have a car, and she insists he not use public transportation. He sees, in an instant. He’s guilty of something if he refuses, the risk of him going to the Feds suddenly very potent in the room. So Jared just shrugs, following Chad out to the parking lot where they keep a row of brand new looking, sleek black SUVs.

“Don’t worry dude,” Chad says easily, at Jared’s stricken expression. “I’m a good driver.”

Jared wordlessly gets in. Delivers a few terse directions.

“Gen’s just looking out for you. Want to make sure you get to wherever you’re going safely.”

“Safely,” Jared says, tone flat. He doesn’t know what he’d been expecting the inside of the SUV to look like, but it’s impeccably clean. There’s no telling if this is the car used to transport dead bodies or not.

“So uh.” Chad makes a right turn, eyes on the road. “About last night…”

“Gen already talked to me. Your dirty little secret is safe with me.”

“What secret is that?” Chad asks lightly.

“Don’t beat around the bush.” Jared growls. ““This isn’t just a hotel, is it? You’re not just entrepreneurs, you’re family. You’d die for each other, kill for each other.”

Chad grins, looks a little maniacal even as he says it. “Was it the moving dead body that gave it away?”

If there’d been any room for suspicion, the blunt reveal pretty much nipped it in the bud. Chad isn’t one for subtlety. Jared’s breath catches, and he feels the challenge in the question. He turns out the window again. “Go left at the next light.”

Chad chuckles, smoothly turning the steering wheel. “This whole conversation is going to be really awkward if you end up driving us straight to police headquarters.”

“Believe it or not, there are more important things on my mind than trying to destroy my own job opportunity.”

They turn into the drive of the rehabilitation center. Jared gets out.

“Where are we?”

“Not the police station, that’s for sure.” Jared slams the door. “I’ll be out by five o clock. Wait for me or not, I don’t care.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Las Vegas Drug and Alcohol Long Term Rehabilitation Center.” Jared snaps. “Any other questions?”

Chad says nothing, just stares after Jared as he stalks from the car.

\--

Five o’ clock comes and goes and Jared’s mother won’t see him. It’s par for the course, but the last twenty-four hours have riled him up something fierce; angry, fearful, unsure of what he’s supposed to do. There’s too much in him and nowhere to release it, thoughts pinging about in his head like a rain of rubber bullets, bouncing and stinging.

Jared doesn’t condone crime, he doesn’t even believe crime should exist. But he understands the rules of a world where it’s inevitable. His mom grew up in it, he grew up trying his best to avoid it. And after twenty-four years spent avoiding it, he’s done nothing but waltzed right into it voluntarily. Even if he didn’t know, there’s no excuse to stay now, except for the desperate feeling in his chest that maybe, if he toughs this out just long enough, maybe he’ll make enough money to get out of the city.

It frustrates him endlessly. Chad drives him back to the Fitzgerald wearing a look that’s somewhere along the lines of pity and guilt—which is the last thing he needs, being the coworker with the emotional baggage—and only serves to piss him off more. Jared’s feeling equal shades peevish and terrified of what awaits him. There is only so much bullshit he can tolerate, and he’s pretty sure dead bodies crosses the line.

“Gen says the boss is back,” Chad mutters as they park. Jared doesn’t know if he’s being baited or casually invited; whatever the reasons he leaps from the car and marches, without ceremony, straight through the lobby and into Jensen’s office. Jensen, to his credit, is barely hanging his suit jacket on a coat rack when Jared bursts through the doors, but he manages to look like he’d been expecting it. He gestures to the chairs in front of his desk. “Why don’t you have a seat, Jared?”

Jared feels a sudden surge of hot anger rush through his chest at Jensen’s casual air. “How about I beat you to it: I quit.”

Jensen blinks. “You have a contract.”

“So I’ll break it. It’s not like I have much of a professional reputation anyhow, given how you’re running some kind of fucked up murder syndicate up in here anyway.”

Jensen doesn’t react to the statement, spat and angry as it is, he merely continues fixing his coat on the rack one more time, stares carefully at his own hands. “In my defense, you weren’t supposed to find out that way.”

“In my defense, you’re a fucking asshole if you think that’s a good excuse for why I nearly walked in on you guys carrying a body out of the conference room last night.” Jared’s venom dissipates in a rush of breath that he knows is fear, a fear of violence that he’s largely left alone the last twenty-four hours but now it chases up his spine. These people he works with, they have killed. They have murdered.

Jensen, apparently choosing to finally take Jared seriously, walks around his desk and sits, leans back in his desk chair and stares at him coolly. Jared does not sit.

“What do you want to know?”

“Was this your father’s legacy before you? Or are you just really good at being the family disappointment?”

Jensen’s lips twist. “Both, depending on how you look at it. But yes, Ackles has never been a name only in the hotel business.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We needed to know you were trustworthy.” Jensen frowns. “I should have known you were too smart to be kept in the dark.”

“An idiot could have figured it out. Whoever was your last financial consultant was, they were shit at covering things up.”

“Well, he was working undercover for the FBI, so that would explain a lot.”

This trips Jared up. “For how long?”

“Oh, a few months, maybe. He didn’t have enough to incriminate, which is why he stayed. Which is why we caught him. He hadn’t earned our trust yet, being new to the company. He was swiftly taken care of.”

“You killed him.”

“We… removed him from the premises.”

Jared stills. “And will you do the same to me, for knowing what I know?”

The cool assessment in Jensen’s gaze turns several degrees chillier. “I haven’t yet decided whether you can be trusted or not.”

Now would be the moment to leave, Jared realizes. Now would be the chance to take himself out of the equation so that the choice and the power of decision is no longer in Jensen’s hands. But determination is a damn ironclad thing. His goals to get out of Las Vegas, to be more than he is, niggles at the back of his throat like the post-nasal drip right before a nasty cold, a warning, a reminder, that he’s got promises to keep. It’s stronger, he realizes with annoyance, than his fear.

“Why did you hire me?” Jared’s anger crests again. “You don’t want sex or a relationship, as you’ve made perfectly clear. I don’t have a degree. And I’m certainly not a criminal you can trust to do your dirty work for you. So why the fuck do you keep me around? What use am I to you?”

“I hired you because you’re smart. You’ve got an eye for the details, and this job is full of those.”

“So why keep me if you’re not going to use me?”

Jensen raises a condescending chin. “Do you want to be used, Jared?”

It is, again, another challenge, a threat wrapped in a shitty flirtation that is supposed to piss Jared off enough to leave. Again, his determination rears its head, a cobra made of chrome and venom, unrelenting.

“I don’t want to be lied to. Don’t bullshit me, on any of this. If you didn’t want me to know eventually you wouldn’t have hired me. So if you’re gonna keep me, if you’re not going to put a bullet in my brain and bury me in cement like the guy last night, then you better start talking.”

Jensen looks taken aback, borderline outraged, and it occurs to Jared that he may be the first person to have ever back-talked Jensen without immediately getting killed for it.

Surprisingly, Jensen just sighs, like some put upon parent whose child has demanded a late night bedtime story, and reaches for a bottle of whiskey that stands on the liquor cart behind his desk. He pours a glass for himself, then one for Jared, without asking whether or not he’d wanted any in the first place.

“Alright then,” he raises his hand in toast, “What would you like to know?”


	3. Chapter 3

The long and short of it is this: Jensen is a pretty fucking terrible mob boss.

At least, that’s very much how it appears at first. The more Jensen reveals about the complicated web of crime, the more impossible it seems to be to fix it. The problem stems from several things—mainly that Jensen does not do business the way his father did, and therefore has made a lot of enemies. Not to mention that Jensen possesses three specific traits—perfectionism, an exacting work ethic, and a stubborn immovability that seem to piss everyone off: immovability likely being the worst of them.

The bottom line, from what Jared can tell, as he attempts to calmly absorb this information as if it were nothing, is that Jensen is right in the middle of a gigantic mess. They’ve managed to import a shipment of drugs so huge that it’s impossible to just sell off in one swoop without attracting attention. But at the same time, leaving it all in one pile is just as dangerous. They are attempting, from what Jensen explains, to divvy out a deal that would involve partnering with another of the mobs for business, other cities, other parts of the country.

“Word of shipments like these is always in danger of getting out, at least to everyone with… common interests, and then everyone’s on our asses asking about it. There’s no handing that stuff out for free, so we’re looking to strike a deal.”

“A deal?” Jared’s ass is almost starting to go numb with how long he’s been sitting on the edge of his seat.

“Trade drugs for protection, stash for distributors, or weapons, or straight up cash. But we have to be subtle about it. Any major transactions between us will be picked up on. So we need to find a partner that’s as subtle as they are smart. Problem is, most of the smart ones are greedy, too.” Jensen gives a pointed look in Jared’s direction.

“The body,” Jared exhales, realization dawning on him. It hadn’t just been a cold and senseless murder. It was a business transaction, and someone had likely fudged the paperwork.

“A distributor that got greedy,” Jensen responds. “He wanted a big chunk of the product that he’d ‘discovered’. Tried to come in here and make threats that he was going to turn us in, or report the shipment, see what kind of compensation he could get to keep his mouth shut.”

Jared tries not to shift in his seat. “And he got shot instead.”

Jensen looks uneasy, scratches at the back of his neck. “Mike can be a little… trigger happy. Tom’s usually the one to balance him out on that, but things went south pretty quick. It was a big fuckup, as you might have guessed. If we take care of people, we usually do it far off the premises, and by no means anywhere near the Casino.”

Jared deliberately doesn’t look away. His palms feel sweaty. “So... you need a business plan?”

“Of sorts. I need a devil for the details. I need someone who can tell me this plan isn’t going to get picked up by anyone, especially Feds. Gen’s usually an ace in the hole for this kind of stuff, but she’s too busy trying to make sure we don’t have a mole in the family.” Another look at Jared, but this time it’s laced with a threat.

“You think the FBI sent me?”

“I know the FBI didn’t send you,” Jensen says. “It doesn’t mean you’re completely trustworthy.”

“Look, I’m sure you’ve been monitoring my every move since day one. You know I’m good for my word. What, you want to wire me?” Jared opens up his hands, palms up.

Jensen leans back in his chair. “I’d hate for it to have to come to that.”

“So don’t let it.”

“Look. We can help each other, you and I. You now know… much of my current affairs. And I know how badly you want to get out of Vegas. You told me so yourself. I’d hate if anything caused a halt in your plans.”

“Don’t,” Jared says, going unpleasantly hot all over. “You don’t get to use that night— _anything_ from that night—against me. I’ll help you with your goddamn business plan. But I’m not going to do it if there’s a gun held to my head the entire time.”

Jensen opens his mouth, and then closes it, eyes cast downward. “I apologize. That was inappropriate.”

“You’re damn right it was,” Jared says, but he shoulders onwards, not willing to dwell on what happened in the past. “So give me your books. And I don’t mean your fake books that were shittily—and I mean _shittily—_ done by your last accountant. Give me the real books. I’ll see what I can do. Wire me all you want. I don’t care.”

Maybe it’s Jared’s lack of objection to being watched that does it, or rather his minute disgust with everything about this situation, but Jensen unlocks a cabinet beneath his desk and pulls out several massive accounting books.

“Go crazy.” Jensen says, looking almost amused as Jared snatches the books from him.

 

\--

 

Before Jared can recognize that time is passing, he’s been on the job for almost two months. He’s been in the know of the illegal operations for more than half that time. He’s still very much an outsider, and it shows in how he’s largely uninvited to most of the business meetings that operate beyond regular office hours. But above all else, Jared is stubborn. If he’s going to be part of a ‘family’ that does these kinds of activities: drug smuggling, killing off the competition, he is damn well going to keep an eye on it. Even if he doesn’t condone it. 

Jared begins by making his appearance a staple at any office event, asking questions, providing input. He’s secretly and viciously pleased at each raised eyebrow and irritated response from Jensen. It’s always information that all other people in the room already know, but Jared soaks it up, listens as much as he learns. When he’s not in meetings, or working, he’s pouring over every single business related document of the past fifty years in the Fitzgerald’s history.

Piece by piece, he begins to get an understanding of this very obviously twisted world.

His constant presence and work ethic is obvious to everyone, and for the most part it earns Jared respect, credit given where credit is due. He rises in regard within the eyes of his co-workers.

All except one.

Jensen Ackles proves to be a whole other breed. One Jared could never have predicted, even given what he knows of him. Jensen is indeed a brilliant businessman, but his exacting nature makes his bedside manner nothing short of atrocious, especially where Jared is concerned.

It’s not exactly that he’s an asshole. He’s never rude, only standoffish. He’s never condescending, only quietly disapproving. To Jared (and it seems to be only Jared who—with his constant questions and opinions—is enduring this) he’s borderline cold. Any attempts Jared makes at familiar conversation or bridging the very long and awkward gap between them are shut down: Jensen either dismissing him with a task or pointing out a flaw in Jared’s spreadsheet. It’s rare that he actually finds one, much to Jared’s delight.

Either way, the business plans that Jared suggests are not taken at face value. Jensen picks them apart, spends hours with him going over possible red flags or bad outcomes, weighs pros with cons and forces him to defend his own ideas to the death. It’s as if Jensen refuses to trust him, and makes that point abundantly clear by trying to find every flaw he can in his contributions to the business, like in them is a hidden motive to tear the mob down.

If anything, knowing this version of Jensen kills pretty much any possible romantic notion that Jared may had ever felt towards him. It’s damn near impossible, seeing the two Jensen’s Jared knows as one person: Jensen the mob boss, and Jensen the stranger in the strip club.

On a particularly sunny afternoon, and after a particularly grueling session with the former form of Jensen, Jared’s sent out of Jensen’s office to run some numbers at his desk, while Gen marches in to take his place with a bag of Chinese takeout and a stack of what looks to be city plans. The door closes behind her with a loud and pointed click.

Jared watches them sullenly through the glass walls of Jensen’s office, feeling the slightest tinge of a weird workplace jealousy. He and Jensen work in stops and starts, pushing under each other’s skin and loudly bickering when they don’t agree. But Gen and Jensen carry a conversation soft and quick; lead more by eye contact and small gestures than by actual words. They seem to take the words out of each other’s mouth, speak their own indecipherable language.

It annoys him endlessly, the fact that someone in this world seems to understand Jensen. Jared sure as hell can’t. He stomps back over to his desk, casting a side glance over at Chad, who’s chugging coffee and biting into a Granny Smith.

“So.” Jared throws the most recent business draft into the shredder, goes to start from scratch. “Exactly what the fuck is his deal?”

More than anyone else in the office, there’s a weird truce between Jared and Chad that goes unspoken.

Chad hasn’t brought up the rehab center, not since the time he drove Jared there. Jared’s been taking the bus there since, but Chad always offers to give him a ride. Chad’s also laid off the teasing a little, and Jared hopes it’s more out of respect rather than pity.

Chad raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Jared makes a flippant gesture towards Jensen, who’s got his back turned as he continues to talk to Gen. “I mean, he’s not exactly a little ray of sunshine.”

“You try running a mob. See how quick it gets to you.”

Jared watches the perfectly straight and tense line of Jensen’s shoulders as he inspects some city plans with Gen. “Is he ever not… like that?”

“Only if he really likes you." 

“What do you mean?”

Chad takes a crunching bite out of his apple, talks around it. “Ackles doesn’t really interact much outside of the business. He’s kind of standoffish that way. No one really gets close enough.”

“He doesn’t…” A flush rises on Jared’s face. “He doesn’t date anyone? Or hook-up?”

“Nah.”

Chad takes another chomp out of his apple, and Jared tries to focus on his screen. His fingers falter to a halt on the keyboard. “Is he… closeted?” Jared asks.

The thought had been on his mind since the moment Jensen swore him to secrecy. He can’t imagine the crime community being all too LGBT friendly. The nature of their first encounter alone--Jensen’s caginess, his lone wolf entrance into the club, and most especially his disappearance the morning after—it gave Jared the impression that Jensen was either the type who did this sort of thing with discretion, or the type that had never done it before.

He’s surprised when Chad just blinks, not surprised at all by the question, as he responds. “Not really. Jensen’s been out since he was in high school. It’s not like he’s ashamed of it. There’s just risks to dating on the job.”

He watches the line of Jensen’s shoulders again, at odds from the way Jared had first been acquainted with them: sleep and alcohol making the now taut muscles loose and yielding beneath his fingertips.

“So he’s just really not the personable type,” Jared says flatly, more for his own benefit than anyone else’s, a reminder of the real situation.

“Why, you single and looking to mingle?” Chad jokes sarcastically, but when he sees the expression on Jared’s face, his eyes widen. “Holy shit, Jay-Bird. You kidding me?”

Jared cringes. He’s single, but he’s already been there and done that with the mingle, as far as Jensen is concerned.

“I was just curious,” Jared says shortly, turning back to his spreadsheets. “It’s not like the guy is open about himself. I’m well aware this is not a dating service.”

“Eh, you’d probably help melt that cold mysterious exterior he’s got going for him.”

“Is that his reputation?”

“Ice-cold Ackles,” Chad reiterates. “In my three years of knowing Jensen, I’ve never once seen him with someone for more than a night. And since he started running his dad’s business, I haven’t seen him with anyone, period.”

“Surely he dated in college.”

Chad shrugs. “If there were guys, I’d never seen them. There was a time when I thought he and Gen had the hots for each other, but that shit’s practically incestuous, given how close they are. Bottom line, whether he’s uninterested or he just doesn’t have the time: no one fucks the Boss.”

 _I did_ , Jared thinks, though he’s not sure he can even apply the word to their one night together. It hadn’t been a fuck. Not at first. It had, truthfully, the first time in a long time that Jared even felt like another person in this world saw him, and wasn’t looking down their nose at him.

But that was then and this is now, Jared reminds himself, refocusing on the task at hand. He may never know exactly why Jensen came to the Roadhouse—though the more Jared understands of this carefully spun crime web, the more he can glean some understanding of the motivation for it.

 

No one fucks the Boss. Jared’s got no plans to change that fact any time soon.

 

\--

 

Just when Jared’s starting to think that this job will only ever be office work – and starting to worry at when he’d begun thirsting for something more – Jensen sets up a meeting with another gang. Someone they can actually do business with, rather than talk endlessly about the concept of doing business, like Jared’s been doing these past weeks.

“The reservation is set for seven o’ clock,” Jensen says tersely, handing Jared the business plan they’d spent weeks painstakingly perfecting, as if he doesn’t think Jared doesn’t have it memorized cold. Jared will be meeting with a representative from another gang, led by Mark Pellegrino. The name triggers some sort of memory. Jared’s sure he’s heard it tossed about in lieu with drug smuggling at some point during a meeting.

“This is your chance to show if you’re worth your salt,” Jensen says, and Jared’s having a hard time making out whether or not he’s teasing, especially as Gen sweeps into the room with an array of fancy looking suits, instructing Jared to change and try each of them on, effectively distracting him.

“Have I not proven that already?” Jared asks.

Jensen chuckles, a tense sound. “Maybe. But consider this your aptitude test in Crime 101.”

Jared opens his mouth to point out again that Jensen’s likely being a bit unfair and paranoid, when Gen smacks his arm, toe tapping as she impatiently squawks at Jared to put the suits on or she’ll do it herself. He rolls his eyes, strips down quickly. He’s had time to go out and shop for nicer clothes, he already has suits. Even though he’s still pinching pennies and saving, his salary is hefty enough that he can buy them. But Gen’s ideas of nice go to a whole new level of excessive that Jared can’t even begin to understand. 

“You’re representing the business,” Gen snaps, adjusting his tie as Jensen stands off to the side, inspecting her handiwork as Jared is forced in and out of outfits like a Ken Doll. “Gotta look sharp.”

Jared ignores her prodding fingers and looks to Jensen. “Do you think he’ll make a good partner in business?”

“He’ll do,” Jensen says stiffly, and Jared hears the discomfort in his voice, not so exacting as it had been moments before.

“You don’t like him.” He tries not to move as Gen sighs, dissatisfied, as she takes off Jared’s tie to switch it out for another.

Jensen hesitates. “I don’t necessarily agree with his code of ethics, is all. It’s that same reason he and my father got along like two peas and a pod. But he’s good at what he does, and he’ll help us out of our current predicament.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Gen’s tying another tie around his neck, and Jared can’t help but liken it to a noose.

Jensen does turn now, facing Jared in all his suited up glory, face fixed with one of his cold stares that Jared is getting kind of tired of at this point.

“Between you and me, tell me, who’s got more experience with these sorts of people?”

“You know the answer to that,” Jared responds, not willing to play games of Guess Who.

“Thought as much.” Jensen nods. “Get this deal for me, convince Pellegrino’s guy to sign, and go into business with us, and you’ll be in my good graces.” He smiles. “At least, for a little while." 

Jared just rolls his eyes, and follows Jensen down to the car once Genevieve gives her final nod of approval.

Jensen spends the entire car ride drilling him ruthlessly about the plan, coaching him through everything, from what to order at dinner to what small talk topics to touch on. He would find it annoying except for the fact that he’s actually starting to get nervous. This whole thing feels a bit unfair, Jensen just tossing him into the fray, but he’s determined to do well. 

“Fuck,” Jensen swears, glancing down at his phone. “Chad, Sam just texted. Alona missed her shift again.”

Chad curses, echoing Jensen, and Jared frowns. “Alona? The hostess in the restaurant?”

Jensen’s already texting back, his mouth a grim line. “Yeah. She’s been on the run from an abusive ex for a while now, but he’s out of jail so she’s been checking in. But she hasn’t shown up, so we’ve got to go to her place. Once we get you to the restaurant.”

Jared’s baffled. “But—why?”

Jensen blinks incredulously at him as the car pulls up to the curb where Jared is set to meet Pellegrino’s representative. “Did you think all this job revolves around is smuggling drugs and shooting anyone who gets in my way?”

“Well… yeah.”

“When you’re family,” Jensen shifts and Jared catches a flash of silver close to his chest—a gun holster, hidden from prying eyes behind the tinted windows of the SUV, “You look out for each other. Having this much power doesn’t mean I just get to wield it as a weapon. I can use it as a shield, too.”

“I’ve never heard of a criminal like that.”

“Didn’t you ever hear of Robin Hood?”

Jared has a hand on the door handle, but he makes no move to get out. “Robin Hood wasn’t a rich hotel heir, nor did he have tons of drugs stashed away.”

This fact seems to have no effect on Jensen’s decision. Jared huffs. “So you’re going after her. Okay. But you’ll still be here to meet us when the meeting concludes, right?”

“Should be.” Jensen nods. “You’re running this meeting as my representative. If all goes well, you bring Stuart to our off-site offices, the place where you interviewed with Gen, and I’ll meet you there.”

Jared’s nerves crackle again, even as he nods and the two of them step out of the car, Jensen walking around to his side to get in the passenger seat next to Chad. “That seems like a bad idea. What if something goes wrong?”

“You’ve got a better idea? All you have to do is convince the guy to sign. And Pellegrino’s going to want to sign; he’s too greedy to ignore an opportunity like this, even if his guy pretends to give you a hard time. Just text me once they’ve decided the deal is worth signing, and after dinner I’ll meet you at the off-site offices and we can seal the deal. Sound good?”

“I—”

“Look,” Jensen says, short. “There isn’t much time. A girl could be getting beaten to death right now, and I’m asking you to hold this meeting and get the job done. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, and I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think you could do it no sweat. Alright, Padalecki?”

“And if you’re kept late and I’m forced to entertain our guest until you arrive?”

Jensen grasps his arm, almost too tight, a gesture that Jared thinks is supposed to translate to bracing machismo and motivation, but really just feels like he’s holding Jared still so he can’t run. “I won’t be late. Do your damn job, Padalecki, and everything will be fine.

“I’m going reiterate that I really don’t think this is a—”

“It’ll be fine. Just repeat everything we’ve gone over. Any questions you can’t answer, wing it anyhow. You’re quick on your feet.” Jensen hands Jared a small briefcase that contains all the documentation that Jared needs. “You can do this, Jared. We’ve got your back. Text me if anything comes up. You can do this.”

It’s frankly a dick move, leaving him hanging out to dry, because while Jared’s not a kid, he feels that he should have like… an escort or something for his first illegal under the table deal. But Jensen’s gone before Jared can further protest, stepping back into the SUV without another word. Chad pounds the gas as soon as he gets in, and takes off down the Strip.

Jared squares his shoulders, clutches the briefcase with the papers a little tighter, and enters the restaurant with his head held high. He works hard not to be taken aback by the obvious five star quality of it. It’s a place that Jared would never have dreamed entering unless he were bussing the tables, but now he walks in, states his name, that he’s here for a reservation at seven, on behalf of Mr. Pellegrino.

The hostess smiles politely at the mention of the name, doesn’t even check her roster before she leads Jared away from the entrance.

“Mr. Stuart has already been seated.” The waitress smiles, gesturing Jared over to a man seated on a table in the corner, out of the way, slightly dimmer lighting, a private nook in the room where they won’t be so overheard.

Jared can feel it the moment he approaches the table for two and the other man at the table lowers the menu obscuring his face, recognizes it like scent of smoke in the air before seeing the fire. The man, Stuart, according to the waitress, looks at him in the way that made Jared take this job anyway. The look that Jared left the strip club to get away from.

It’s so easily recognizable, thirst dawning on a man’s face, unmaking any facade of the gentlemen that existed before.

“Well, well, well.” He rises with a smile that reminds Jared of a snake’s tongue flickering out, tasting the air, sensing the atmosphere. “You’re fresh meat. New hire?”

The tone of his voice alone is enough to set Jared on high alert, his gut instinct the thing that usually keeps him safe when he’s being cornered like this. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t have the luxury of running away from this. So he straightens his spine, pushes his shoulder back, and steps forward.

“Consider me the next best thing,” Jared says politely. “I’ll be representing Mr. Ackles, and will be conducting the first portion of this meeting in his absence.”

“And your name?” The snake smile grows impossibly wider.

Jared holds out his hand, confident and unwavering, not showing an ounce of discomfort. “Jared Padalecki, business consultant and personal accountant for Mr. Ackles.”

It’s a bit of an exaggeration on his part, but it establishes him immediately. He can certainly fake it until it seems plausible. Despite all uneasiness, Jensen was right. Jared is perfectly able to handle this entire business affair.

“James Stuart. I’ll be the eyes and ears for Mr. Pellegrino this evening. Though I must say, isn’t this a pleasant surprise? Usually Mr. Ackles sends the Bitch on Wheels to handle the paperwork. You’re a much,” Stuart’s eyes drag down Jared’s body, “Prettier substitute, I find.”

It takes Jared a reeling second to realize the ‘bitch on wheels’ is supposed to be Genevieve, and his immediate mistrust of this guy ratchets up into high contempt before he’s even registered the flirtation that came with it.

He holds his chin up, and sits down as dignified as he can. “Prettier or not, I’m here to get the job done. So why don’t we get down to business?”

Like a Cheshire cat with a canary, Stuart’s smile only seems to grow. “Get the job done. I like the sound of that.”

Jared holds back the temptation to visibly gag. “Mr. Stuart, if you are not here to do business…”

“But isn’t all business in our world also a dalliance in pleasure?” Stuart smirks, “After all, we are in Sin City.”

“Maybe in your world.” Jared smiles tightly. “But my world is run by my boss, and my boss doesn’t let such discrepancies occur when on the clock.”

It’s the closest to a threat Jared can get without seeming hostile, but Stuart thankfully seems to take a hint, holding his hands up in surrender. “Whatever you say, Mr. Padalecki. Shall we do this?”

The three-course meal over the next two hours is something Jared hardly registers, but he eats the ridiculously pricey food exactly as Jensen meticulously instructed him, using the right forks and the right wines in the particular orders. Most of his attention, however, is spent on the numbers before him, the business plan.

He lists every single part of the speech he’d heard Jensen rattle off at him, grateful he attended the meetings with the others, even if he’d been largely uninvited. It makes Jared look like he knows what the hell he’s doing. And while he does, mostly, he has no clue about the larger part of the business that it buys into, so little time he’s had to learn as much as possible.

Stuart, for all his uncomfortable innuendo and very obvious ogling of Jared at every turn, seems almost impressed with the presentation. His own proposal seems just as clean, as far as Jared can tell. Whoever Pellegrino’s business consultant is, they’re just as good. 

They reach their agreement just in time to order tiramisu and another bottle of wine. Jared declines with a tight smile, wonders absently what Jensen is up to, if he’ll actually be available to meet. Stuart drives a hard bargain, but a good one. They would make the deal soon. As it is, dinner’s gone well over two hours, and Jared’s had enough of Stuart’s eyes on him to last a lifetime.

Towards the end of the dessert, Jared excuses himself to go the bathroom, where he sends a brief text to Jensen: _Numbers look clean, no dirty stuff here. On your mark._

It takes less than a minute for a response to come. _Seal the deal_. _Meet at the off-site offices._

Smiling tightly to himself, feeling just the slightest bit proud, Jared exits the men’s room and returns to the table. He fends off several more passes from Stuart, and then suggests that they take these business negotiations to Mr. Ackles himself, who is on his way to meet them.

Having no limo to escort him, Jared is forced to ride with Stuart and his driver, playing GPS as they drive to the address Jensen texted him. The car smells heavily of cologne and air freshener, the slightest tinge of blood in the air as well, making him antsy in his seat, even knowing that Jensen will be there to take the reins when they step out.

He’d done surprisingly well, for his first majorly illegal activity. It feels like an accomplishment, more than it probably should.

They pull up to the off-site offices, pull into the empty underground parking garage. Jared hasn’t got keys to the office so they park. It’s dark, and there are no cars around besides the one they’re in. The driver pulls into the spot near the doors, and Jared tenses when he realizes that Jensen isn’t there waiting for them. No one is.

Stuart is drunk, _very_ drunk. That much is clear as he gets out of the car, stands a little too close for Jared’s comfort. Swaying just the slightest, that hunger still gleaming in his eyes.

 _Where r u?_ Jared texts Jensen, nerves kicking into overdrive. It was one thing fending off Stuart’s innuendos in a public restaurant, it will be another thing entirely to do so when there’s no one around and nothing but darkness and an apathetic looking driver between them.

“Thought your boss was here?” Stuart snaps, looking irritated. “Mr. Pellegrino doesn’t appreciate his time being wasted.”

“He’ll be here.” Jared says in what he hopes is a soothing and non-patronizing tone. “Mr. Ackles doesn’t flake.”

But the longer they stand there in the parking garage, the more it looks like Mr. Ackles does exactly that. Stuart paces like a wild animal, jumps when a police siren goes off several blocks away outside, patience very obviously waning. Jared feels the skeeziness of his looks earlier turn meaner, more threatening. He leans against the side of the car, as neutral in body language as he can make it. It won’t do him any good to show fear, even when the situation may call for it.

A half hour goes by, and Jensen has not responded to a single one of his texts. A half hour, and Stuart finally snaps.

“I’m fucking out of here—” Stuart growls. “You tell your piece of shit boss that he can fuck off, no deal. He doesn’t get to waste my time, much less Mr. Pellegrino’s. That shit’s disrespectful and bad for business.”

“There was an emergency,” Jared pleads, because Jensen will kick his ass if he doesn’t pull this off, “It happens.”

“If he wanted to do business with Mr. Pellegrino, he should have made that his number one priority. Mr. Pellegrino doesn’t like it when people don’t show him the respect he deserves.”

He stares at Jared for a long moment, gaze turning wolfish and hungry again. “In fact, I better send a message to your boss. Show him what happens when you disrespect _my_ boss.”

“C’mon now,” Jared laughs uneasily, “No need to shoot the messenger.”

“Who said anything about shooting?” Stuart asks, and then he turns to the driver, nodding back towards the garage’s entrance. “Take a break,” he orders.

Jared’s stomach drops as alarm blares through his mind. The driver shrugs and starts to walk away, grabbing a cigarette pack inside his jacket, tapping it against his thigh as he trudges out of the garage, and then Jared doesn’t see any other way around it. He needs to call Jensen and figure out what the fuck is going on, right the fuck now.

He’s grabbing his phone to do just that when Stuart’s rushing forward and pinning Jared to the car with his body.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jared exclaims, but it’s too late, Stuarts mouth is smearing over his, biting his lip too hard, thrusting his tongue into Jared’s mouth.

“Get the fuck off me!” Jared yells, shoving the guy back with all the strength he’s got.

Poor choice of words, as Stuart takes both the shove and the warning as a challenge. He pulls out his pistol and slams the barrel of it into Jared’s temple, stunning him. Ears ringing, vision swinging to and fro, Jared doesn’t have time to recover before Stuart’s opened the passenger seat door of the car and shoved him in. Disoriented and aching, Jared’s forehead cracks against the gear shift, the ringing in his head increasing, adrenaline sending him into a helpless panic as Stuart crawls on top of him, begins unbuckling his belt.

“Gonna teach your boss what happens when he sends his little _slut_ to do the work for him,” He leers, breath like stale cigarettes and wine clogging Jared’s airways. “Gonna show him.”

Jared feels outside of his body, like he is seeing it pre-emptively, watching himself from above, all slow motion and high quality detail. His mind is blank with passive horror, his body a lax and defenseless thing, too dazed to fight against it as Stuart began to pull at his own clothing, chuckling darkly under his breath. He can’t hear any cars in the distance.  Jensen isn’t coming. This is happening. He can’t even shut his eyes against it and—

_No._

The thought takes hold of Jared’s being so violently that he lurches against Stuart, unseating him. His limbs are still sluggish, disjointed, but Jared doesn’t allow the fact of that to deter him from grabbing the car keys from the ignition and swinging them across the guy’s face.

How soft human flesh is as it tears.

Stuart yelps in pain and Jared drops the keys, scrambles to get out of the car, vision blurring with tears.

He spots the gun on the dashboard, grabs that too, slams it into the spot he’d just keyed across Stuart’s face, hearing the distinct sound of cracking teeth. He kicks out at Stuart in the ribs as hard as he can, the motion propelling him backwards and slamming into the concrete. He stands, all scrapes and bruises, and gets as far as he can to the other side of the parking garage.

“Get back here, whore!” Stuart roars, and Jared just stumbles away, his knees throbbing from where he’d hit the concrete. He hears Stuart get out of the car after him, and truth be told, Jared could probably outrun him, in a game of fight or flight.

Jared does not choose flight.

He turns heel to face Stuart, holds the gun up so the barrel is at eye level.  The chaos of ringing ears and a throbbing body is suddenly cleared away, everything sharp with clarity, with adrenaline. Stuart didn’t really get to lay a hand on him, and Jared’s going to make sure he never will.

Stuart leers, spits out a tooth, a bloody maw grinning in Jared’s direction. He takes a step towards Jared. Jared cocks the safety.

The man laughs, sends spiders racing down Jared’s skin in chills.

“You don’t know what you’re even doing there, pretty boy.”

The worst part of all of this is, Jared does. But there’s no logical explanation for it that doesn’t point to a severely fucked up childhood. It sits there in his muscle memory, the first time his mom’s dealer had come to the house with a gun, how he’d held Jared at gunpoint while his mom had screamed and cried, given the man her phone, her laptop, all the money in her wallet, her credit cards, anything she could do to pay the debt and keep him from killing her boy.

The dealer had left, and they’d moved in the middle of the night across town, a new address. Jared had purchased his first revolver off a kid at school and was out shooting cans in the desert by the middle of the week.

But he doesn’t think about that now, not directly. He doesn’t even speak, worried it’ll betray him, focuses all his energy on keeping his hands steady around the gun.

He sees the split second where Stuart decides that he won’t shoot, and doesn’t even think to try and stop him when the man lunges. He pulls the trigger.

It happens in echoes, those waves of sensation and observation, all starting with the pained scream that tears through the air as Stuart keels over, clutching his knee cap.

The second thing that hits Jared is the blood. The bullet didn’t hit the femoral artery, but there’s enough blood to make it look like he did, seeping onto the concrete, through Stuart’s perfectly pressed slacks.

Thoughts formulate in a game of red light green light in Jared’s head, but he focuses, keeps the gun trained. Stuart’s certainly incapacitated for the time being, which is all Jared needs to get away. He should get away. He should run. He should text Jensen.

He doesn’t need to text Jensen, the gunshot apparently having done the trick. He’s just about to get his wits about him when the SUV comes screaming into view, headlights shining straight into Jared’s eyes and the rest of the garage. Stuart groans on the ground but Jared doesn’t look away, keeps his hands steady, breathes in and out, adrenaline keeping his focus razor sharp. He’s not sure, but he thinks he hears Jensen and Chad slowly get out of the car, the engine still running. Maybe Mike and Tom, he can’t be sure. He’s too busy keeping his gaze locked on Stuart, who is down, but Jared’s not taking chances.

“Jared, put the gun down.” That’s Chad.

“No.”

“Dude--”

“ _No_.”

“Boss--”

“Shut up.” Jensen pinches at the bridge of his nose, and Jared doesn’t really get why he’s so mad, _he’s_ not the one who got shot.

Jensen approaches so softly that Jared doesn’t even hear him, rather detects his aftershave, the low and gentle tone of his voice.

“Jared, you did good. You did the right thing. Okay, just give Chad the gun. We’ll keep it on him, okay? He won’t get away.”

Again, Jared _knows_ that. He made that possible, after all. Jared doesn’t really understand why Jensen’s talking to him like he’s five. Because he’s got this under control and Jensen doesn’t have to worry about it. All part of the job description wasn’t it. Protect the company, protect the legacy, at all costs. And wasn’t Jared doing that? So what the fuck was Jensen’s deal anyway?

Quick hands snatch the gun from Jared, and he suddenly can’t recall if there was a struggle or not. Those same hands guide him to the door of the SUV, sit him down, close the door behind him.

“Stay in the car, Jared.” The command is delivered in a way that Jared doesn’t even consider not listening to it, not that he could. It’s suddenly difficult to keep track of motion, of anything outside of his own pulse, his own breath. The echoes are resounding longer, the world moving away in sight and sound, a Doppler effect in reverse.

He watches numbly, as Jensen steps out in front of the car, stands over Stuart. He says a few terse words; Jared can’t make anything out over the sound of the running engine. Jensen’s back is turned to him but he can see the unmistakable look of fear on Stuart’s face plain as day.

The look of a man who is about to witness his own retribution.

It happens like a stop motion movie, the zoetrope slide images that show Jensen holding out his hand, taking the gun from Chad, handling it with deadly calm.

Chad, although the weapon is not pointed at him, looks almost scared too.

The gun glints in the headlights.

Jared watches it happen.

Jared lets it happen.

The shot echoes just as much as the first time. The body crumples too softly to be heard over the engine, once again. The pavement is grey, but the world is red red red.

He’s sick to his stomach without having eaten a goddamn thing, spends the rest of the ride back to the hotel shaking in his seat, held by the same deep rooted instinctual fear he’d felt when his mother’s dealers had come to the house for blood, for revenge. Before Jared was old enough or smart enough to learn how to fight back, he had shut himself in the kitchen cupboards and prayed to anyone who was listening that they didn’t find him and decide to take him as the consolation prize, the bargaining chip, to get what they want.

It’s that same fear of then muzzling him now, only Jared can’t hide. The fact of the matter is that Jared had had the power to get the fuck out of here; not just that alley, but this entire situation, this entire world. He had the power to say no, to walk away from something that only seemed to beckon him further the more he tried to leave.

He could have left. He could have quit. 

But Jared did none of those things, not when he got the job, not when he realized exactly who he was working for. Not in all the seconds leading up to him pulling the trigger.

There are terrible circumstances in life. There are things that happen to you that cannot be wished away for they are innate, fated, set in an iron cast which you mold to as you simply struggle to survive.

There are terrible circumstances, and then there are terrible choices.

Jared has had enough of the former in this life, to know when he’s dealing with the latter.

No set of circumstances had forced him to do any of _this_. He was just a kid hungry to get out of his hometown. When had desperation turned him so dangerous?

The question scares him enough that his senses suddenly snap back into perspective: the rumble of the engine, the roaring in his ears, the terse voices bounding around the inside of the car.

“--saw a driver there too, made a run for it when he saw us. Call Mike and Tom, have them track him down, take care of him too. Can’t be that far. Tie up all the loose ends.”

“Jensen.”

“What?”

“What the fuck is wrong with him?”

It takes Jared the duration of the long pause and stares to register that they’re talking about him.

“Pretty sure he’s having a panic attack. He’s in shock. Par for the course, for his first gun fight.”

First gun fight. A hysterical giggle bursts pasts his lips. A first gun fight. Like there would be a second, like there would be more, like it was a rite of passage and he’d gone and lost his gun fight virginity.

He catches sight of his darkened reflection in the tinted window as the car pulls up to the curb. He’s flushed. There’s a bruise blooming on is cheek. His pupils are blown wide.

Jared, for all his quick thinking and scrambled thoughts, can’t trace back to the moment where he’d gone from some _one_ desperate to some _thing_ dangerous. The change had come on slower than the trickle of spilt blood.

“Should we help him?” Chad sounds uneasy. 

“Give him space. Check in with Mike and Tom, update me on their status…get rid of the evidence, security cameras, the usual. Give him some breathing room. He’ll be fine.” 

Jared can’t even get around the cotton in his throat to spit _I’m right fucking here_ at them, just climbs out of the limo on shaky legs, carefully forces his spine into steel as he walks into the hotel, up to his room. 

His mask is composed and no one in the lobby bats an eyelash, and Jensen doesn’t follow, but he forces himself to keep it together until his door is closed, bolted, locked.

He can’t track how he gets into the bathroom but he feels the water when it hits him, soaking through the fine pressed material of his jacket, the patent leather of his shoes. He shivers as the water warms up, he shivers as he soaks, he shivers as the bathroom fills with steam and he curls into the corner of the shower stall, stares at the grains in the tile.

“Jared.”

Jared doesn’t respond but to shiver. He should have known the deadbolt meant virtually nothing. 

He hears Jensen’s steps into the bathroom, the whisper soft removal of the jacket and methodical untying of laces. But when the door slides open, Jensen’s still fully clothed. He stands at the entrance of the shower and looks down at Jared, expression lacking the ice it usually possesses, lacking the cold fury that had been directed at Stuart. His lips are parted, the aforementioned fury replaced by something a little softer, a little wounded, which doesn’t make any sense at all.

The water is burning hot and Jared still shivers. He blinks up at Jensen through the spray.

“Don’t ever make me do that again,” He whispers, trembling. 

Jensen blinks back, cracked open emotion flickering across his features for the briefest possible second, and then he steps into the shower, adjusts the pressure and the temperature over Jared’s head, and slides down the wall to sit beside him. Jared braces for his touch like a physical blow, but Jensen doesn’t lay a finger on Jared, simply presses his shoulder to Jared’s and leans back against the tile. 

“You have my word.” Jensen swears, and it’s almost too much for Jared to hear, but the trembling of his limbs stops, and he leans against Jensen more than he intends to. He’s warmer than the hot water, and the comfort that Jared takes in the presence of him frightening, because it’s the last person on earth he should want it from.


	4. Chapter 4

For all that Jared expected to be watched like a hawk after the incident, he’s given a surprisingly wide berth to do whatever he likes.

The last Jared remembers seeing Jensen, talking to Jensen, was after he’d crawled out of the shower that night, Jensen following sopping wet behind him. Jared had changed his clothes and crawled between the sheets aware that some point between Jensen stepping into the shower spray and getting in the bed he’d stopped shaking. The last time he’d seen Jensen, he’d been curled up and dozing off, and Jensen had been standing in the doorway, still soaked, his expression pensive. They didn’t speak. Jared can’t say if Jensen stayed or left, he’d dropped off to sleep immediately after.

Jared hasn’t seen Jensen since, is inclined to believe that Jensen’s almost avoiding him.

Despite his lack of presence, Jensen assigns Chris Kane to be Jared’s Private Security Detail, which basically means that Chris now drives Jared everywhere in an SUV and mostly exists as a silent watcher while Jared does nothing but sift through financial documents and double check numbers for shipments of drugs.

For all that Jared expected to be traumatized after the incident, he’s surprisingly okay. That unnerves him more than it should.

He’s known violence more from a spectator standpoint rather than from that of a victim or a participator. He’d seen his mom’s bruises and burns from shitty boyfriends, he’d seen the rough way certain men handled her. He’d heard violence in the threats of what would happen to his mom if she didn’t pay her debts. But even with that exposure, Jared had not expected to feel as… normal as he did the morning after he’d shot a man. After he had sat in the back seat of the getaway car as the guy had been put down like a dog.

He knows, logically, that he did what he had to do to survive, and is pleasantly surprised when the guilt doesn’t eat him alive. Granted, there was no way it would have ended differently. Jensen and his guys didn’t put up with rapists, and the second that Stuart had made a move on Jared that Jared had rebuked, he’d pretty much been a marked man. That didn’t make what they did any better. It was still murder, no matter how justifiable it may be in certain courts of law.

Whatever the reasons, whatever had happened, the fact of the matter is that the next morning Jared woke up feeling rested, greeted by an entire platter of breakfast that had been brought up by room service, with a brief note from Sam, _hope you like your eggs scrambled_.

Jared woke up and felt surprisingly okay, not twelve hours after putting a bullet through a man’s kneecap.

It should alarm him more than it does, but Jared goes about his week, and he feels exactly the same.

It’s everyone else around him that’s acting different.

Everyone is super nice to Jared, a nice that doesn’t allow even the usual teasing and playful ribbing. Everyone is super polite; Gen makes his coffee before he’s even walked in the office, Sam has every single meal delivered straight to him, even the guys offer him a cold brew at the end of the day as everyone clears out of the office. Everyone’s nice, but also won’t go anywhere near him. Like he’s a gift to be cherished, but that particular gift is a bomb waiting to go off. At the forefront of this strange behavior is Jensen, who seems to disappear from the room every time Jared spots him and makes an effort to go over to him.

It’s annoying at first, this treatment of Jared like he’s fragile China. By the end of the week, it’s damn near infuriating.

It’s mid-afternoon on Friday when he snaps, Genevieve having offered to bring him his third cup of coffee for the day, with a superficial smile plastered on her face.

“Will you quit it?” He pleads, taking Gen’s hand as soon as he’s removed the mug for it, “What has gotten in to everyone? I know you have more important work to be doing than babysitting. I’m _fine_ , Gen.”

Her smile freezes, and she sets the mug down on the desk, gives him a look at is so very Jensen it’s startling, then pecks his cheek and says sadly, “Yes, I suppose you are.”

“Did you want me curled under my desk and rocking back and forth?”

“No, it’s just--” She stops, exchanging a glance with Chris, who’s hovering in the corner of the room, just over Jared’s shoulder. “Jensen told us you needed space. He said you might be overwhelmed, and not to bother you at all unless it was to help you.”

“Jesus—I’m not an _invalid_ , Gen.”

“I know that!” She pipes up. “We’re just following instructions.”

“Well tell everyone to come off of it. If I find myself in need of a padded room and a strait jacket, I’ll let you know, alright?”

She’s still looking at him sadly, like she’s sorry, and he doesn’t know why.

“What is it?” He asks.

“I never expected you to belong here.” She says gently, “The guys, they had bets going around, how long you’d make it on the job, especially once you found out about the work.”

“You didn’t bet on me?”

“I don’t gamble.” She says primly. “But know that if I did, you bet your ass I would bet on you.”

The admission melts the annoyance fizzling in Jared’s skin. He knows that she’s only doing this stuff because she cares, possibly more than anyone else here. “Thanks, Gen.”

“That’s not necessarily a good thing, Jay.” The nickname startles him coming from her, a term of endearment he hasn’t heard since he was young. It goes hand in hand with the mental picture of his mother trying to coax him onto the school bus when he was being stubborn. Of tucking him in every once in a while, pressing kisses to his forehead.

“You wanted someone who could be a member of the family didn’t you?”

Gen reaches up and strokes Jared’s cheek warmly. “I did. But I’d hoped…”

“Hoped?”

Her dark eyes are fathomless, and he’s once again reminded of Jensen, unreadable and always thinking. They are alike in odd and peculiar ways, but when the similarities show they are startling.

“Never mind, it doesn’t matter. I’ll tell the boys to go back to hazing you, same as usual. Except for Chris. Chris has to be nice to you.”

“As if I could be anything but,” Chris rumbles wryly, his deep baritone startling Jared as it always does, he so rarely speaks, “It’d be like kicking a puppy.”

Jared rolls his eyes, and Gen pecks his cheek again with a soft giggle.

“Does this mean Jensen will stop avoiding me as well?”

“Who said he was avoiding you?” Gen asks innocently.

“Oh come off it, he’s practically been missing in action all week, and everyone seems to run into him except me. Where the hell is he?”

“I’d imagine he’s off probably going to the extreme on the whole ‘space’ thing. He gave the instructions after all.”

“Great.” The last thing Jared needs is another misunderstanding with the Boss. “I’ll go beat him out of that notion immediately.”

“Be gentle with him. He’s only trying to do what he thinks is best for you.”

“Well lucky for him, and all of you, I’m not your goddamn child. You don’t have to take care of me.”

“Yes.” Gen frowns. “I can see that.”

Gen goes to her office to gather her things, and Jared begins to gather his, mind working quickly. He’s sure it’s going to be no walk in the park, convincing Jensen that everything is fine and to stop avoiding it. If it’s guilt that’s got Jensen holed away from Jared, it’s got to stop now. Jared doesn’t have the patience and Jensen doesn’t have the time to play these games. They’ve got a city to run.

“Jared?” Gen stands at the door to the office, her Michael Kors bag tucked over her shoulder.

“Yeah?”

She tilts her head slightly. “Don’t forget the reason you came here. Before you knew the truth. Don’t forget the reason you came in the first place.”

And then she’s gone, heels click clacking away, hair swaying behind her, leaving Jared to puzzle over what on earth she could possibly mean by that.

\--

Jared finishes up the analysis on the latest shipment in a jiffy and heads up to Jensen’s office, only to find it empty. He tries all corners of the hotel Jensen usually inhabits during business hours. Gen hadn’t really dropped much of a clue where he is, and Chris doesn’t seem to be in much of a helpful mood either, merely ambles along behind Jared, keeping pace but still staying a comfortable distance away.

It seems ridiculous that Jensen Ackles would be in his room on a Friday afternoon, but Jared supposes everyone spends their weekends in different ways. He’s never been to the penthouse before, and makes his way to the highest floor of the hotel, the only door at the end of this particular floor, with slight trepidation.

Jared knocks. No answer.

“Jensen? I know you’re in there. Quit hiding and come out.”

He knocks again. No answer. He knocks a repetitive tattle and doesn’t stop. He’s sure the skin on his knuckles is about to split when Jensen finally swings open the door, looking decidedly unsurprised that Jared is there at all.

“Gen warned me you were coming.” He holds up his cell in explanation.

“Did she warn you that I’ve got a bone to pick? Because I do.”

“You may as well come in then, seeing as you’re going to read me the riot act.” Jensen holds the door open, and it’s now that Jared notes the slightly rumpled state of dress, but nonetheless elegant, tie only slightly loosened.

Jared, being the kind of person that typically kicks off his pants as soon as he gets into his room, is only a little baffled by it. It’s Jensen, after all.

“Right.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m going to need you to stop treating me like I’m made of glass. I already told Gen to knock it off, but seeing as the orders came from you, I figured I’d tell you too. Cut the crap. And quit dodging me.”

“I’m not—” Jensen starts, then shuts his mouth at Jared’s raised eyebrows, sighing and leaning back against his desk. “Alright. You caught me. Sorry.”

“I know I’m the green one here in this particular business, but I’m not a baby.”

“I never said you were,” Jensen says quietly. “But you shot someone. Stronger men than you have crumbled over that fact.”

“Guess they weren’t stronger than me, then.”

Jensen suppresses a smirk, mirrors Jared’s crossed arms and looks him up and down. “You are… surprisingly well adjusted for someone who recently used a firearm on another someone.”

Jared shrugs. “I have to be adaptable. It’s under my contract.”

Jensen chuckles, and Jared loosens his posture. “Are we good? Are you going to stop acting like an idiot?”

There’s a flicker across Jensen’s face that says he’s got something more he wants to say, but he merely nods and says, “We’re good.”

“Good.” Jared takes this moment to dart his gaze around the room, which is—for lack of a better word—a mess. The bed is so littered with files and reports that he can barely see the sheets. There are discarded decanters and glasses on every available surface. Charts and graphs are pinned on the walls, like Jensen has kept everything from staff meetings. A white board stands in the center of the room, covered in chicken scratch handwriting that he could only assume was Jensen’s, listing shipments, suppliers, gang leaders. It looks like Greek to Jared, but he’s positive that white board alone could be enough to convict this entire organization.

“Working hard, I see. What are you even doing?”

“It’s nothing. Just mob politics. The usual.”

“It’s a Friday night. Were you planning on working all night?”

“Not planned so much as expected to,” Jensen says. “The city never sleeps, which means I never do.”

“Okay. No.” Jared walks further into the room, tiptoes between the papers over to Jensen. “You’ve been holing yourself up in here all week. Take a fucking break for once.”

“I think this is one of those pot calling the kettle black scenarios.”

“I’ll take a break if you do.” Jared challenges, and Jensen fights back another smile.

“You’re on.”

Jared’s mind works quickly, thinking of something to do in all of six seconds. “Have you ever seen the tourist side of Las Vegas?”

“I’ve seen it…” Jensen begins. “I’ve seen parts of it.”

“You mean you’ve walked around it looking for potential hotels to build.” Jared scoffs. “Listen, I hate this city more than anything, and I can’t wait to get out, but even I have been to M&M world.”

“M&M World?”

Jared’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. “Oh my god. We’re going out. We’re going out right now.”

“I don’t really have the time to go out on a date right now,” Jensen fumbles for an excuse. “I assumed a break was going down to the bar for a quick drink.”

“This is not a date,” Jared says, turning away and bee lining for Jensen’s closet so he can hide his flush, “This is an _education_. You can take one night off. I’ll even pay for everything, so no one gets to say that Jensen Ackles splurged for himself, okay?”

“Do I have any say in this or are you just humoring me in pretending to convince me?”

“You know me too well.” Jared grins, and groans when he opens Jensen’s walk-in closet. “Jesus, don’t you anything that’s not a suit? Change your clothes, hurry up.”

Jensen balks. “What’s wrong with wearing this suit? It’s a nice suit!”

“Be that as it may, Jensen, we’re taking a field trip to a little place called the Real World. Where people where clothes that aren’t ten thousand dollar suits. You’ll like it. Much more comfortable that way. And like you already deduced, you don’t have a say whatsoever. So change and meet me outside in fifteen, or so help me I will pick out your clothes. And you won’t like that at all. My fashion taste is admittedly terrible.”

Jensen blinks in surprise, and just when Jared’s expecting a protest, he’s surprised to find that he doesn’t get one. Jensen wordlessly disappears into the walk in closet, and Jared dashes downstairs to change his own clothes. He’s grateful that he decided to keep most of his old clothes, because even though he could never wear his Dallas Cowboys long sleeved shirt while he’s on the clock, it’s perfect for this sort of outing.

Jared heads down to the lobby and a few moments later Jensen comes down dressed in honest to god _jeans_ , and a soft cotton t-shirt with a slight dip at the collarbone. It’s the most pedestrian thing Jared’s ever seen him in, and although he looks a bit more commonplace, the effect of the clothing does nothing whatsoever to diminish the fact that Jensen is startlingly attractive. Jared’s stomach swoops a little bit at sight of a partially covered bicep and forearm.

“Here.” Jared throws a zip-up hoodie in his direction, having known Jensen wouldn’t bring one with him. “In case it gets chilly.”

“You’re not going to tell me anything about where we’re going, are you?”

“Not one damn thing.” Jared agrees.

“I’ll call us a car.”

“For what? We’ll walk.”

Jensen eyes Jared warily. “I don’t think that’s the best idea given the circumstances.”

“If I wanted to play the game of Safety In The SUV right now I’d ask my assigned bodyguard, who’s stationed literally behind me at all times. No one’s going to recognize us, and we’re not going to go anywhere that warrants being cornered in an alleyway and shot at. Will you just trust me?”

It’s a simple request, in Jared’s eyes, but again Jensen seems to chew it over, even as he puts on the hoodie.

“I trust you,” Jensen says, like that surprises him.

Jared feels like he’s missed some larger memo on the point of this conversation, but they’re burning daylight and he’s already concocted a laundry list of things he wants to get done before it gets too late.

“Well then, come on slowpoke.” Jared strides for the door. “We’ve got things to do.”

Jensen follows behind, and—to Jared’s very distinct pleasure—waves off Chris when he makes to follow.

\--

They hit the Strip at a hurried pace, just as the sun begins to sink beneath the purple mountains of the desert. Jared’s got the longer legs but Jensen keeps up with him just fine, weaving through the crowds of tourists meandering from block to block. It’s a chilly night out, and the farther away they get from The Fitzgerald, the more uncomfortable Jensen looks, which tells Jared exactly where he needs to head first.

“We’ll start here,” Jared says, walking Jensen up to the ticket booth.

Jensen looks up at the sign dubiously. “Why here?”

“Because the New York New York roller coaster is infamous for its loop-de-loop, and there’s no way in hell we’re doing that after M&M world and the Coca Cola Factory… Oh, and the Hershey’s factory of course. Plus, it’ll wipe that sour puss look right off your face.”

“I am not a sour puss,” Jensen responds in reflex and Jared laughs. “I’ve just… never been on a roller coaster. Are we sure this is safe? I mean, it’s not exactly theme park levels of professional.”

“Jesus, what did you even do your whole life here?” Jared asks incredulously.

He likely knows the answer to that question, and it’s a lot bloodier than Jensen would ever let on.

“I was always a bit too busy for tourist traps.”

“Or a bit too stuck up. I hate Las Vegas more than anything but even I have been on New York New York. Even I’ve been on a roller coaster. Are you scared?” Jared grins. “It’s okay if you’re scared.”

The teasing does the trick, nips any sign of trepidation off of Jensen’s face.

“Alright,” he says, turning and setting his jaw in determination, “Lead the way, oh wise tour guide. Show me my city with fresh eyes.”

It becomes glaringly obvious from the minute they step in line for New York New York roller coaster, that Jensen is absolutely out of his element.

It’s not so much that he’s awkward or out of place, but rather that Jensen doesn’t seem to know how to exist in a place without analyzing it, without taking note of criticisms or business plans that might come to mind, or even looking to where things might be unsafe. Even beneath the pristine surface of polite interest that Jensen has so easily feigned, Jared can see his mind churning away, the little crease between his eyebrows a betrayal of all his efforts to seem like he’s actually enjoying himself. It presents a challenge for Jared, actually getting Jensen to relax at any one point, pulling him out of himself.

It’s Jared’s brilliant judgment that they ride the roller coaster first. It’s a bit rickety, heavy on the g-force on the loop but Jared hears more than once Jensen shout with exhilarated laughter, the force of the air punching it out of his chest whether he’d wanted it to or not. Jared screams his whole way through the ride, letting the tension of the week slough off of him with each sharp curve and dip of the track.

They get off the ride, and Jensen looks—there’s no better word for it— _incensed_ , a boyish glint in his eyes and Jared doesn’t even hesitate to yank them back in line when Jensen asks if they could maybe go on again.

They go on again. Jensen laughs even harder the second time around.

Then commences what Jared tries his best to structure as the Las Vegas Tourism Palooza. From the sounds of it, Jensen has been to all of the hotels on the Strip at some point or another, for business, for pleasure, for the sake of checking out the competition. However, he doesn’t protest with boredom as Jared drags him through Paris and makes him ride to the top of the Eiffel Tower, walks him through the marble sculptures of Caesars Palace, the lions of MGM, the grandiose architecture of the Luxor. He doesn’t once complain as Jared drags him through the more gimmicky parts of each hotel, Mandalay Bay’s shark aquarium, the fake streets of Paris with cafes and shops.

Jared is shocked to discover that Jensen has never taken a turn on the Gondolas in the Venetian, has never ridden the giant High Roller Ferris wheel at Linq, and therefore takes it upon himself to ‘expose Jensen to proper culture’ as much as he can in the limited time they have. Jared insists on paying for everything and Jensen doesn’t really protest to any single activity. Late afternoon slips into late evening, in the way that time only seems to slip by when you’re truly enjoying yourself.

And, much to Jared’s secret satisfaction, Jensen seems to be enjoying himself quite a bit.

Intimidating though he may seem at the best of times, Jensen is a surprisingly easy person to talk to. Jared had never doubted it, given how he’d become acquainted with Jensen in the first place, but he’d always assumed the ease of that first night had only been made possible by the presence of several specific factors, the most important of them being alcohol. Yet even sober, the conversation flows with ease alongside the rest of their evening, with each new location and venture comes a new topic. They start simple, with work, with their experiences at work. Despite only really having one thing in common, they don’t talk about mergers or dead bodies or drug smuggling. Jared tells Jensen about all the odd jobs he worked to get by, skirts around the grittier details and mostly recalls them with humor. Jensen touches briefly on being a bartender in college, how it pretty much deadened him to thinking there was any hope for humanity, recalling particular disaster stories that leave Jared clutching his sides with laughter.

They talk about how Jensen met Gen, and Chad, how he’d cultivated his merry band of devoted gang members. Given their particular line of work, Jared’s surprised to find how bloodless the origin of their friendship is. Most of the now mob members were pals from Jensen’s law school days, friends or peers that he’d had in the palm of his hand before they even knew who he was. Gen and Jensen had been thick as thieves in their undergrad, conquering all their business classes and earning the title of Shark King and Queen.

“She’ll never let me live down how we initially met though.” Jensen smiles wryly as he and Jared look out over the city from the High Roller.

“Where’d you meet her?”

“She made a pass at me at a Frat Party. I was wasted off my ass and had to drunkenly explain that I was gay. So, in true Ackles Form, I tipsily told her that if it were up to me I’d marry her on sight she was so beautiful, but I’d be a useless husband on account of really liking dick.”

Jared guffaws. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. And then I threw up on her stilettos. She dragged my ass outside and nursed me through a pretty nasty hangover. By the beginning of the next semester we were living together.”

And it wasn’t just her, everyone in the gang had ties to Jensen before he’d taken over the mob. Oddball stories of happenstance camaraderie that bind people together. Chad had been the local bartender, gotten Jensen his first job. Tom and Mike were the two guys who got kicked out of school for selling tests to students. Sam had been Jensen’s nanny growing up, had basically raised him when his parents chose not to. Chris’s was the owner of a local boxing gym: he’d trained alongside Jensen when he was younger. All of them were people with stories, had other jobs, other lives, and somewhere along the line Jensen Ackles came along and collected them like a curator with a cause. But, Jared notes, Jensen had never asked anything of them. Nothing in the story speaks of blackmail, coercion, the kind of stuff one would expect leads to working for a crime lord.

When Jensen left Harvard to take over the business, they just came with him, an unquestioned package deal.

It baffles Jared, trying to fathom what depth of character one must have to inspire such undying devotion from people who were not a part of this world from the beginning.

But the more Jensen talks, the more Jared can see it. The persona of Jensen Ackles: Mob Boss is ice cold, polite at best, terrifying at worst. Gen and the rest of them had met this other Jensen first, the one that Jared sees before him as they wander the Strip together. The Jensen that makes odd faces and makes self-deprecating jokes with a wry twist of his lips. The Jensen that rambles a bit when he’s trying to make a point, trailing off and restarting thoughts, only to recover with some witty quip that has Jared snorting to himself. He’s a bit of a dork, Jared realizes, with a fondness that embeds between his ribs with the precision of a bullet.

The conversation ebbs and flows, silly stories to serious subjects and back again.

“Can I ask you something?” Jared asks, the two of them walking through the Venetian, window-shopping with the rest of the tourists.

“Shoot.”

“Why did you go to help Alona? Why not just call the cops?”

Jensen raises an eyebrow, hesitant at first, but ultimately seems to decide that Jared deserves to know what he was almost raped for. “Alona’s brother worked for my father. Died of a gunshot wound during a drug deal gone wrong. She’s family, we take care of our own. So we had to take care of her ex, get her to safety. But… she’s not the only one. I’d do it for anyone who needed help. I don’t like that shit on my streets.”

“What, domestic abuse?”

“Any abuse,” Jensen mutters. “We’ve taken out pedophiles, rapists, pimps that mistreat their girls. Risky, sure, but it keeps innocent people safe.”

“And by taken out, you mean…”

Jensen raises another eyebrow, and Jared nods. Understood.

“But if that’s not your actual job, has nothing to do with the money you make, the shit you sell, why do it?”

Jensen shrugs. “Someone’s got to. The Law—they got all these rules, the system, all the bullshit protocols to go through. We operate with the same idea of justice, but without the rules. We see the bad guys, we take them out. Prisons are too full these days anyway. It’s justice, swift and to the point.”

A month ago Jared would have called it cold-blooded murder. And perhaps it is, but he is not able to see it simply as such anymore.

“You said something that night,” Jared says, “About having power, and the choice to wield it as a weapon, or carry it as a shield for others. That’s what you’re doing, aren’t you?”

Jensen nods. “There is always crime in cities. People are stupid to think it will ever be eradicated. Human vice makes it inevitable, the curiosity and seduction of sin, if you want to go back to biblical history. I deal in crime, but I keep it clean. Clean drugs, no tainted shit. I don’t deal with dishonorable men, men who hurt the innocent.”

This is said with all the terse authority of the Jensen that Jared saw the other night, the one who talked him down from the edge, who sat beside him under the shower water. A man of his word, who believes and practices what he preaches.

Jared feels a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth despite himself. “You have a baffling but fascinating morality, Jensen Ackles. I’m glad I didn’t quit before I became acquainted with it.”

They’ve ambled along to the line for the Gondola rides. In an effort to avoid looking at the odd expression on Jensen’s face at that statement, Jared shoves him onto the nearest Gondola, leaning back and kicking his legs up on the edge of the boat to stare up at the ceiling.

“And can I ask you something in turn?” Jensen asks a few moments later, the two of them drifting along the fake canal.

Jared nods.

“How are you so good with numbers?” He’s leaned back against the hull of the boat, legs stretched out as far as the thin boat will allow. “Like, I’ve seen smart people. But I’ve never seen photographic memory smart. What’s the secret to your superpower?”

“You want the god’s honest truth?”

“Sure, why not?”

Jared stares up at the painted blue sky on the ceiling far above their heads. “When I was a kid, my mom got into a lot of trouble. Drugs. Gambling. Self-ascribed prostitution to make extra money. If I had a father, I don’t remember him ever existing in my life. So I learned from a young age how to balance books, how to pay rent, how to keep track of everything, so she wouldn’t get hurt, so I could eat when she went off on one of her benders.”

“You taught yourself?”

He nods. “I was always good in school, even if I didn’t stay in school. I used to steal library books and learn things about accounting and balancing funds, study after my homework was done. There were a couple times when I messed up the numbers. Sometimes it meant I’d go hungry for a week, or that I had to shower in the community center. Other times it meant big scary men showing up to our home with baseball bats looking for mom. She always seemed to know when they were looking for her, her superpower I guess. So nothing ever bad happened to her. Just nothing ever good, neither.”

“That must have been tough.”

“At times, yeah. We lived in a tiny trailer park on the outskirts of the city. Most of the time I spent looking after her. Making sure she didn’t get in to too much trouble, making sure CPS didn’t come to our door. I knew kids that were in group homes and shit, and as much as a handful as mom was, I didn’t want to be like those kids. I worked odd jobs, mowed lawns, babysat kids, and I hid the funds from her so she couldn’t use them for drugs, or whatever substance of the week she was abusing.”

Jared’s eyes sting. He’s never really talked about this aloud, and it feels stupid to be getting choked up about it. “It worked for a while. I was smart and she tried. She had good spells. Times where she’d swear she was quitting cold turkey, getting clean. She’d get jobs, take me to the movies after school, cook home meals. It was good sometimes. But my senior year of high school she got bad… really bad. And her dealers started coming around the place more often, wanting their money back, making threats. It made her nervous. She’s never been good in a crisis. I went out with friends one night, just one party to blow off steam after working two jobs plus classes, came back to find her overdosed on god knows what, heroin I think.”

“Jesus,” Jensen swears.

“I checked her into long term rehab as soon as the hospital cleared her. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I had to drop out of school just to be able to pay for it. S’where all my money goes to, why I could never afford to go to college, get a bigger place. I’m trying to keep her alive.”

“She’s been in since your senior year?”

“In and out. It’s hard to keep track. I’m just there to check her back in whenever the hospital calls to say they’ve found her again.”

“And I’m sure she appreciates the hell out of that.”

Jared blinks, nonplussed. “She hasn’t spoken to me in three years.”

Jensen can’t quite seem to come up with a response to that. They look out at the water, at the people chattering away happily in restaurants, and finally Jensen asks, “Why stay?”

“What do you mean?”

“You could test out of high school easily, there are colleges that give scholarships, jobs that would give you—“

“I want to.” Jared says succinctly. “It’s just not that simple. I’ve never had the luxury of putting myself before others. And I don’t want to be anybody’s charity case.”

“You deserve more than this, you know that right?”

“I do,” Jared answers, because he does. “But I also know that the world isn’t always so fair granting good things to people just because they deserve it.”

By the time they stroll up to M&M world, Jared’s stomach is growling. He’s eager to keep Jensen talking—he had just been in a doozy of a story about teaching Chad how to properly fire a gun—but Jared can’t ignore his hunger anymore, and has an idea that Jensen may be on the same plane.

Jensen’s eyes go wide, and he almost looks child-like as they walk in.

The place is mostly filled with kids grabbing eagerly at the various dispensing machines. Jared hands Jensen a bag. “Pick any color or flavor you want. As many as you want.”

“As many as I want?”

“As many as you want. Have at ‘em.”

They spend easily a half an hour picking out which colors and kinds of M&Ms to fill their bags. It turns out Jensen’s more of a dark chocolate kind of guy, and lingers for more opaque colors rather than the vibrant milk chocolaty ones Jared’s picking out. They end up with a pound bag each, and leave the store munching happily, before stopping over at the Coca Cola Factory. Jared forces Jensen to sample each type of Coke, which leads to the two of them playing at pretension and acting like Cola Connoisseurs. Sipping with pinkies up and saying things like, “It has a bit of an oaky fizz to it, don’t you agree?” and laughing themselves hysterical when the store clerk gives them weird looks.

Figuring that Jensen is decently caffeinated, enough to get him through the night, they leave and hop through a couple gift shops, ogling at overpriced t-shirts and souvenir mugs. Jensen eyes a particular gilded shot-glass and Jared buys it, figured he makes enough zeroes on each paycheck to indulge a little.

“Thank you,” Jensen says.

“Don’t mention it. I figured I owe you for the whole Hiring Me thing.”

Jensen huffs a laugh. “Does that mean we’re done?”

“One last stop.” Jared nods. “We’ve got to go to the Bellagio. No Vegas tour is complete without it.”

“Oh yeah, the fancy schmancy fountain show, right?”

“You don’t understand, Jensen. They do a fountain routine to the _Titanic song_. If that doesn’t make you cry, I don’t know what will.”

He drags Jensen back through the throng of people all the way to the Bellagio fountains, checks his watch. They’ve got about twenty minutes, which means perfect time to find them a good vantage point before the crowds show up, ignoring Jensen’s skeptical, “Is it really necessary to get a good spot to stand?”

Jared’s hopes and prayers apparently come through, as the fountain explodes in perfectly choreographed geysers and cascades. Celine’s voice seems to pull the water out of itself and into the air, higher and higher as _My Heart Will Go On_ begins. Jared doesn’t care how over the top and cliché it is, it’s magnificent. He coos out loud as the final chorus brings in water spouts of over two hundred feet. He leans against the railing, pressing his shoulder to Jensen’s.

He’s mostly distracted by the show, but every once and a while he sneaks a glance over at Jensen, feels a flutter of victory at his open mouthed awe.

“Alright, I’ll admit it.” Jensen smiles slowly as the fountains fan out a wave of water that seems to wriggle and curve like a living thing. “This is pretty fucking neat.”

He’d never thought Jensen would look so comfortable out of his element, acting like a normal civilian in normal civilian clothes and doing normal civilian things. But it looks good on him, just as good as the suits and the no nonsense expression. Ease looks just as good on him, if not better. The sudden urge to touch Jensen in those places where he is relaxed, to commit them to memory, hits Jared like a bullet for the second time this evening, but this time the emotion is not fondness, but want.

This is the closest, Jared realizes, that he’s ever been to the Jensen that he met first. Before the job, before the mob, before everything. The Jensen who smiles and jokes and leans rather than standing ramrod straight. There’s a softness to his usually rocky edges, one that Jared wants to drag out for as long as he can.

The last of the fountain spouts fade into mist along the water when the song comes to a close, and Jensen turns to Jared with a smile so brilliant and wide it knocks him clean off his feet. _There you are_ , he thinks. It’s not like Jensen is a whole other person altogether. Jared now knows the man behind the smile, understands how important it is that he is smiling. He feels selfish for it, but there is something about a Jensen Ackles smile that feels unbelievably contagious. Jared wants to hoard it at all costs, protect it at all costs. He doesn’t know if he’ll get another one in this life.

“C’mon.” Jared takes Jensen’s hand, ignores the kick in the chest it provides as he brainstorms one more activity they can do before the smile fades away. “I want to show you something else.”

They’re crossing from one side of the strip to the other when Jensen stills, like an animal that’s scented prey on the wind. “Is that… jazz music?”

“Oh _Lord_ ,” Jared groans as Jensen yanks him through a crowd of people where tourists are gathering. Street performers, likely kids from the music school at the university. It’s just a small jazz ensemble, a trumpeter, a bass player, a few saxophones and clarinets for good measure, a drummer. Jensen walks forward like he’s been called by sirens, leading them to the fringe of the crowd. The tourists have formed a small throng, enough space for a few elderly couples to break off of the crowd, dancing hand in hand.

Jensen looks like he’s torn between smiling and frowning, an expression of incredible yearning obvious on his face. Jared squeezes his hand.

“Do you want to dance?” He asks.

“I don’t really do that,” Jensen mutters, but he’s still eyeing the makeshift dance floor on the pavement, the couples bouncing to and fro.

“Jensen Ackles the Mob Boss doesn’t,” Jared whispers low in his ear, “But Jensen Ackles, regular tourist out for a night on the town can do whatever the hell he wants.”

And then before Jensen can think too much about it, Jared’s tugging him to the dance floor, just as the ensemble switches up to something a little slower, a little bit sadder.

For claiming he doesn’t dance, Jensen seems to understand the semantics of it pretty quickly. He puts one hand on the small of Jared’s back, lifts their clasped hands into the proper form of partner dancing.

“I thought you didn’t dance.” Jared blinks.

“They’re playing Ella Fitzgerald.” Jensen says, as if it’s obvious. “It’d be an insult not to.”

And so they dance.

For all of Jensen’s protests, he’s pretty much the opposite of the bad dancer he’d given the impression he was. He moves with effortless grace, rotating Jared with an easy shift of his feet. They move like music box dolls at first, smooth but a bit stiff, rotating on an axis, but then Jensen gets this wicked glint in his eye and spins Jared out and back in again. It’s a bit dramatic and over the top but Jared rolls with it, laughing in surprise and spinning right back in to Jensen’s arms, their chests only knocking just slightly.

If people are staring, Jared’s not aware of it. It’s fun, maybe the most fun Jared’s had in years, puts a balm on something he didn’t know was aching inside of him. Maybe it was the shooting; maybe it was just knowing Jensen doesn’t hate him after how badly Jared handled the situation. Maybe it’s the breath Jared’s been holding since the first moment they saw each other in the hotel. Whatever it is, something loosens in Jared’s chest, letting Jensen turn and spin him about, the occasional dip bringing them nose to nose for a split second, before they’re off and spinning again. Jared may be taller than Jensen, but Jensen never once lets on that he has a problem supporting Jared in any of his dips and turns, guides Jared with a firm hand at the small of his back and keeps their hands firmly clasped and upright, the rudder of their little two-person ship.

“Someone went to Cotillion lessons,” Jared jokes, as Jensen pulls him out of a rather low dip, their noses almost brushing with proximity that neither of them acknowledges.

“Something like that.” Jensen smiles, and then the expression settles into something a little more troubled. “I was expected to court all the young society daughters of the men my father worked with, get myself a nice little mob wife.”

“But that didn’t work out in your parents’ favor, did it?”

Jensen smirks. “You could say that. I came out to my parents when I was sixteen. It was boarding school and then Ivy League after that. I’d like to think they wanted me to get the best and most tolerant education I could, with the most opportunities, but the reality of it is they wanted their black sheep of a son as far away from them as possible, and that’s that.”

“They sound lovely,” Jared says dryly.

“My mom wasn’t so bad.” Jensen shrugs, turning them once more. “It was my dad that never really accepted it. And things didn’t get better when I told him that I didn’t want to take over the Family Business.”

“What did you want to do?”

“What all good little boys raised in bad places want to do,” Jensen replies, “Law school. Become a good little lawyer. Save the world the right way. The honorable way.”

“I guess it didn’t turn out that way.”

The ease of expression in Jensen’s face remains deceptively neutral. He seems to put so much focus into it that he doesn’t even notice the vice grip he’s got on Jared’s hand, unconscious of the stress he’s feeling.

“Mom called me right after I’d gotten my law degree. I was all set to start at a huge nonprofit law firm. Pro bono cases for battered women and underprivileged kids, that sort of stuff. Dad had stage four cancer in most of his organs, best estimate was six months to live.”

“You went home.”

“I figured there was no love lost between the old man and I, but you know, I could at least pay my respects. Try not to be a total disappointment.” Jensen’s expression now loses all neutrality.

“My father has always been a gambling man. He likes bets. He likes challenges. He likes them especially because he knows I can’t back down from them. His last words to me were, ‘I bet you can’t fix this city. I bet you can’t do it the way I did’. He wanted me to take over the gang. And he knew the magic words to make me do it. And I did it, and I did it better than he ever did,” Jensen says bitterly, staring right into Jared’s eyes. “But this isn’t what I wanted. It never was.”

It is a vulnerable admittance, that Jared is no more a victim of his circumstances than Jensen is; trapped by obligations to family members who have long since stopped caring about the two of them.

Polite applause breaks through the moment, and Jared releases Jensen with the sudden realization that they hadn’t even noticed the song ending.

What had been a perfect suspended moment of happiness had been cracked and permeated by the outside world all over again. Jensen seems to have come back into himself, and he once again looks awkward in his jeans and t-shirt, out of place amidst the crowd.

“It’s getting late,” He says, and everything about the clipped tone suggests that this and all other friendly conversations for the evening are over. Jared can’t help but wilt a little.

It’s only a few blocks back to The Fitzgerald, and they make it there in three minutes, Jensen intent on his shoes the whole way there. Jared tries to initiate conversation, but it only serves to make Jensen withdraw a little more. By the time they’ve reached the hotel, Jared’s prepared for Jensen to wordlessly disappear upstairs to brood some more.

Jensen does not.

“Have a good weekend,” Jensen says, stilted, turning heel to face Jared before they step into the hotel. The soft neon glow of Vegas lights tints his skin, the other side of his face hidden in shadow.

“You too,” Jared says, handing off the shot glass. “I’m glad I could expose you to some real Las Vegas night life.”

Jensen ducks his head down, like he’s suddenly shy. _“_ I’m glad too. I didn’t realize how badly needed it until just now. Thanks.”

“Oh.” Warmth unfurls pleasantly in Jared’s belly. “Don’t mention it.”

Jensen nods again, looking at Jared for just a second too long—as if he wants to say something else, then shakes his head as if to clear it, and pushes back into the hotel.

By the time Jared gets his wits about him to follow, Jensen has already vanished from the lobby.

He heads towards the elevator and finds Chris has appeared out of nowhere at his shoulder. Jared offers him the bag of M&Ms, and is kind of surprised when he actually takes a handful.

“I’ve never seen Mr. Ackles take the night off.”

“Yeah well, first time for everything.”

“You’re good for him.”

Jared falters, blinking around the statement. “I don’t know that Jensen lets anyone be anything enough for him to be considered good or bad.”

Chris just shrugs his massive shoulders. “I can’t speak for him. Just stating what I see.”

Jared narrows his eyes. “Any other knowledge you’d like to impart?”

His bodyguard shrugs again. “A lot of men have died on the job before. I’ve never seen him lock himself in his room for a near week because of it. I’ve never seen him get his hands bloody over it. And you didn’t even die.”

It’s like he’s saying things and Jared’s hearing them in slow motion.

“I’m a valuable asset to the business.”

“Yeah,” Chris says, and it’s the first time that Jared detects a hint of sarcasm. “That must be it.”

They ride the rest of the way up in silence. When Jared finally does manage to fall asleep, it’s with the imprint of Jensen’s unwavering smile on the backs of his eyelids.

\--

The next morning, there’s a large bowl of M&Ms sitting on Jensen’s desk in his office all through their business briefing. Jensen—in the middle of talking about an arms deal to go down next Saturday—snatches a dark blue one out and pops it into his mouth mid-sentence.

Jared bites his tongue to keep from laughing aloud.

\--

Whether on purpose or by accident, Jared cannot tell, but for whatever reasons, he and Jensen begin spending more time together over the following month.

It’s mostly business that they talk about, Jared advising Jensen on how to disguise the money from the drug shipments, and arms deals. It starts with Jensen stopping by his desk to ask a quick question and ends with Jared pacing back and forth, ranting about how Jensen can’t just put millions of unnamed assets in the company’s name. It’s not that Jensen’s bad at what he does, he simply shows the practice of someone who’d had never guessed that this was what he was going to do with his life. Which, Jared understands now. But Jared’s really just as unpracticed as Jensen is at all the official parts of this. They bullshit where they can, they ask Genevieve for advice where they can’t.

These consultations start as just that, interrupted by this and that, but in between them slips in an ease that Jared was not prepared to discover with Jensen. It was like that night on the Strip, only Jensen’s still in his business suit, only Jared is technically on the clock and Jensen is his Boss.

And yeah, he’s learning pretty much everything about the history of the Ackles Mafia, studying up on where their shipments come in from, who their major buyers are, where they’ve lost business to, where they’ve gained it. He asks questions, dozens and dozens of questions, and is pleasantly surprised when Jensen answers them without hardly any hesitation.

The consultations prompted by abrupt questions and requests from Jensen soon just become routine. Jared often bypasses his desk entirely and just goes straight for Jensen’s office before he’s even got his coffee. They don’t really talk about their personal lives, at least, not like they did that night on the Strip, but Jared still finds little snippets of Jensen’s enigma chipping away bit by bit the more they go back and forth.

Like how Jensen worshipped at the altar of the Dallas Cowboys, a ride or die football fan. Or that Jensen hated jazz music most of his childhood, but had rediscovered it in college. Or that there are leisure reading books littered around Jensen’s office, tucked in between law school tomes and hidden under papers. These tidbit facts are revealed usually in the midst of spats and bickering, because Jared and Jensen have a knack for that. That’s what gets Jensen the most free to talk, Jared’s noticed, is when he’s impassioned about something. Even if it’s just Jared threatening to burn a spreadsheet for the twentieth time unless Jensen agrees to dilute the funds currently delegated to ‘event planning’. Nothing shakes Jensen loose from his enigmatic mask more than riling him up, Jared’s pleased to discover.

It’s all relatively normal, Jared’s transformation into one of the family.

Other things happen to Jared, too, though not necessarily as enjoyable as that.

Christmas comes and goes, and Jared spends the day at the rehab center on the extended Christmas Day hours. The other visitors do arts and crafts with their families; eat a Christmas dinner offered by the kitchen staff. His mom doesn’t come out, and Jared doesn’t expect her to, but this time it stings a little more than usual. Maybe because, this time, he’d had stuff he’d actually been excited to tell her about.

New Years approaches as well, and Jared spends the evening before helping Jensen stake out a possible relocation for the stash of heroin. The round the clock armed guard is going to get noticed eventually, even with all the discretion being used. It’s been hours of looking at empty storage units, trying to ascertain the least suspicious place, and all they’ve come up with is nada.

It’s two hours to midnight when they call it an evening.

Jared stretches, joints cracking. “Alright, I’ve had enough of you. I’m starving.”

Jensen, for the first time Jared’s ever seen, yawns, in a surprising moment of vulnerability, blinking back exhaustion. “Me too. Pretty sure my fridge is empty though.”

It’s not really an invitation, but Jared picks up on it quick enough, along with the side glance Jensen gives him. “Want to get some pizza and beers? See what’s on Pay Per View?”

Jensen grins. “You took the words right out of my mouth, Padalecki.”

Despite having sizeable amounts in their bank accounts, they leave the Pay per View out to dry and continue the rest of the evening playing games of Egyptian Rat Screw until they’re screaming so loud that Chris actually kicks the door open to make sure they’re okay. Jensen’s feet are bare and Jared’s cheeks are warm and they eat their way through two large meat lovers and it’s so much food that Jared is sure he’s going to burst but they eat every last piece, chuck the crusts and pepperoncini’s at each other like a game of dodge ball.

Jensen texts Gen, and with Gen comes Chad, who texts Mike and Tom, who bring the rest of the crew in and before he knows it, they’re all piling onto the penthouse suite couch, Chad picking the Star Wars marathon on the TV. Even Chris leans into the room, quoting a few lines from the movie and adding the occasional trivia commentary.

Midnight comes and goes, and somewhere around one am Chad points that they missed it and they all break out wine coolers from the mini fridge and pull bullshit sentimental toasts. Toasts to themselves, toasts to the Family Business, toasts to the future, glowing toasts to Jensen and then—

“To the rookie!” Chad bellows, who appears to have his own flask of alcohol on him. “Our little Jared, our certified genius, for not reporting us to the FBI after finding out that we sometimes kill people as a job perk.”

Jared laughs, rolls his eyes as everyone says, “To Jared!” and drinks heartily, practically draining their wine coolers. Jared meets Jensen’s gaze over the brim of his bottle, and they exchange a fleeting smile, before turning back to the TV as the Star Wars marathon continues.

Genevieve comes over and plops herself between their safely distanced bodies, tangles her legs with Jensen’s and slips her hand through his as she plays with Jared’s hair with the other. Jensen whispers that she should do little braids on Jared and she giggles, shaking against both of them, the glue in their little trifecta unit. Jared looks around the room, sees everyone sandwiched on the couches, sprawled on the floor, relaxed and happily and just the slightest bit tipsy. Jensen looks over at him, grinning over the top of Gen’s head.

Sitting there among them, Jared thinks that maybe this is how you build your family.

It is not the people you are tied to through blood, through name, but rather the people you willingly choose to bond yourself to. The loyalty is an added perk, but the real novelty was in the choice. There are the pre-packaged one-size-fits-all families, and then there are the families where some assembly is required.

Jared’s finding, more and more, the value of the latter.

\--

The New Year ushers in a whole list of things to get done at the Hotel Fitzgerald. By the end of the first week of January, Gen’s already got a huge winter bash set up, a speakeasy themed Casino Night with live music and double the crowds. Jared spends his time evenly between the accounts and helping Gen party plan, too busy to hang with Jensen, as he’d been the weeks during the holidays.

He’d become so used to it, it surprises him when he misses it, the easy conversation and back and forth. The notion feels weird to even address, and Jared’s in the midst of doing exactly that, going about the daily tasks Gen has set aside from him, when he gets a text from Jensen himself.

_Come to my office ASAP. Need to talk._

Jared grins, pockets his phone, and heads to the offices without a second thought. Chad can pick up the slack for him, Lord knows he wasn’t doing much else other than hitting on the bartender again as he helped her restock the bar.

“You wanted to see me?” Jared pushes open the door to Jensen’s office, unsurprised to find him standing already. It’s a rare moment that the guy actually winds down enough to relax. That doesn’t irritate Jared as much as it used to. 

“Yes.” Jensen flashes a smile that is small and fake. “I wanted to, um. That is.” He stops. Restarts. "I wasn’t entirely… upfront with you.”

Jared raises an eyebrow. “Regarding?”

“Pellegrino,” Jensen says with a grimace.

Jared frowns. “What are you talking about?”

“A few weeks ago, after you shot Stuart. You thought I was dodging you because of guilt. Yes, I was guilty. But I was preoccupied, with trying to keep Pellegrino from waging a fucking gang war against me.”

Oh.

The facts slip into place, Jensen’s odd complacence at letting Jared come in and tear him a new asshole for hiding from him, his reluctance when they’d first left the hotel.

“When we went out--”

“He’d already promised not to make a move against me until we debated further.” Jensen explains, finishing the thought. “I was still worried he was going to go after you, but I didn’t want to have to tell you and make you even more afraid for your life than you had been that week.”

“I see,” Jared says tonelessly. He sits down in one of the chairs in front of Jensen’s desk, moving robotically. “So it was that bad?”

Jensen sits down too, fully facing him. “I went to Pellegrino as soon as I knew you were safe that night,” He explains, which Jared can only assume means that Jensen went to Pellegrino after Jared had fallen asleep after he shot Stuart, and not a second later. “We had taken out Stuart, and the driver. One was more valuable than the other, but they were still bodies. I had to try and… contain the situation before Pellegrino jumped on the opportunity to strike back.”

Jensen’s furrowed gaze is fixed on ring he wears on his right hand. The ring is a simple silver signet that Jared used to think as a display of status and wealth, but the more time he spends with Jensen, the more he realizes the significant weight of it on his finger. He fiddles with it when he’s stressed, and stares at it in moments of deep thought and Jared’s seen enough photos of Alan Ackles by this point to know who the ring originally belonged to, the true significance on Jensen’s hand that goes beyond accessory.

“Is he the type that would do that?”

Jensen looks up from the ring, locks eyes with Jared. “He absolutely is.”

A slight chill settles over the air in the room.

“I am not my father,” Jensen continues, “And Pellegrino doesn’t like me for that simple fact. Almost everyone in this town is just waiting for me to fuck up so they can take his legacy for their own, his empire. So, I had to use my father’s friendship with Pellegrino to wager a quick truce, appeal to his better nature for momentary peace. But it’s not going to last.”

Jared’s throat feels dry. “What do they want exactly, in exchange for not going to war?”

Jensen doesn’t answer, but his eyes return to staring at the ring on his finger, no longer able to look up at Jared.

The realization takes Jared’s insides like a mouse trap, a sting of panic skittering about that he can’t escape. He’d known the risk of it, right from the second he pulled the trigger. It had been stupid to think bygones would be bygones, and that dead bodies would go unnoticed.

“Am I going to--”

“They will not _touch_ you,” Jensen says severely, and even Jared cringes. He looks like he did when he pulled the gun on Stuart, the single minded focus of rage, controlled and unstoppable. “I’m handling the situation. I have been. You’d have been dead by now if I weren’t. But I’m clueing you in now, because you need to be aware of what’s at risk.”

Jared waits, silently, for him to continue. His lungs feel too big for his chest.

Jensen sighs at his un-encouraging response, rubs a hand over his face. “It’s like trying to assemble an atomic bomb, this whole scenario. When you kill a gang member, everything gets tense. Sometimes it’s warranted. But this time we killed two. And Pellegrino doesn’t think that it’s warranted at all. What I did, taking both of them out, it’s a ripple effect. Pellegrino’s men want blood for blood, or some bargain of equal weight.”

“And you’re hoping you can come an agreement rather than a blood pact, so I don’t get a bullet in my brain.”

Jensen opens his mouth, but settles with a nod, as if Jared’s taken the words right out of it.

It hadn’t occurred to Jared, not really, the limb Jensen is going out on for him. His eyes widen. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me any of this?”

“You didn’t need to know,” Jensen says quietly. “The less you knew, the safer you were. Chris had eyes on you and I could take care of the rest.”

Jared sits back in his chair. “I still don’t understand why you’re going to all this trouble. You didn’t even _like_ me before I was getting your entire operation into jeopardy. Why not turn me over?”

“I may be a hard-ass, but I’m not a fucking _monster,_ Jared.” Jensen folds his hands in front of him, and Jared watches as he presses down on his metal ring with a thumb.

“That doesn’t answer my question. You’re risking a lot for one goddamn accountant. Especially when you didn’t trust me all of a month ago.”

Jensen’s mouth snaps closed, and he huffs, frustrated, glaring peevishly at Jared before he says, “You’re a part of this family. Protection is a given, and non-negotiable.”

“You sound over the moon about that fact.”

“Maybe I would be if you weren’t so goddamn _irritating_.”

The genuine note of exasperation in Jensen’s voice loosens the band around Jared’s chest, but not by much. “It’s a talent of mine.”

Jensen breathes out, a short exhale through his nose. “I’m not turning you over. I may be many terrible things, but a turncoat to my family isn’t one of them. And despite the ongoing list of cons, that family includes you.”

The statement has just enough bite that Jared can rally from the underlying sweetness that comes with it, bringing along an unfamiliar feeling that sits uncomfortably in his chest.

“Maybe it does, but still, you should have said something to me.”

“Well, I’m saying something now,” Jensen grouses.

Jared bites the inside of his lip, and stays quiet for a moment. “I don’t want to be a burden.”

Jensen actually sighs this time, and leans back in his chair. He looks tired. “That’s not how this works. I don’t have the patience for burdens.”

“Fine.” Jared, too, is exhausted with this back and forth. “So why are you telling me this now, apart from wanting me to ‘be prepared’?" 

“Because,” and now Jensen’s lips quirk, a glint in his eye that’s almost playful, “I’ve got a plan.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

They call it a ‘peace negotiation’, and from what Jared gathers in his crash course lesson, it’s some bastardized mix of a public soiree as the guise, and a peace treaty beneath the surface. He doesn’t really get how, but somehow, Jensen inviting a bunch of gang members to a special Casino Night--and now the reason for Gen’s speakeasy theme party is much clearer--is a show of respect, of friendship.

The formality of it is a little too Godfather for Jared’s taste, he doesn’t get why Jensen needs to jump through all these hoops to appease people that don’t seem to want to be appeased.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Jensen says. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s the way things are done. These men worked with my father. They’re practically family.”

Jared highly doubts that. “Just because you invite the vampires inside your home, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not going to bite.”

“The point is,” Jensen presses on, ignoring him. “We need to make a good impression. It’s what my Dad did back in the day. The Fitzgerald parties are the ones people talk about for _years_ after the fact. The other mob members bring their families and friends. We go all out, and in the showy spectacle, no one realizes what’s happening right under their noses.”

They’ve got about twenty-four hours, maybe a little more. Jensen’s not exactly manic with excitement, but rather charged with eagerness. The perfectionist within him seems incapable of backing down from the challenge. Jared recognizes the feeling all too well.

“You know,” Jared says softly, moments later, as Jensen signs off on an ice sculpture and tastes hors d'oeuvres samples, always a few paces in front of Jared, so he has to keep up, “You don’t have to do things the way your father did. I know that’s what he wanted, and I get that being respectful and courteous is important, but trying to win over and appease some of these people…it doesn’t have to be what you do. Say the word and we can cancel this whole thing, think of something else.”

Jensen pauses, inspecting the difference between two different flower arrangements, before casting Jared a side glance. “I don’t have to. But if I don’t, then he wins. And he’s right. So instead of worrying about _my_ job, you worry about yours. You let me take care of the talking, while you--”

“I know, I know,” Jared says, already dreading the night to come. “Seen and not heard. Wallflower. As far under the radar as humanly possible. I heard you loud and clear.”

He really shouldn’t be itching to get back out there, to help Jensen, but the hustle and charm of crime is incredibly alluring. Despite his better nature, his common sense, he wants more. It’s not that Jared’s an adrenaline junkie, but a lifetime of self-taught survival and quick thinking has practically trained him for this area of work. He likes the challenge of it, as Jensen does; the how to solve a problem without drawing attention to the problem in the first place.

And now, they’re about to pull off this huge underground meeting of the mobs, and Jared’s practically excited for it. Only he’s been benched this inning.

Best case scenario, the other events of the party will be enough of a distraction that he won’t find himself missing the action too much.

 

\--

 

Danneel starts as the opening act to the evening. Jared doesn’t think they could have picked a better, more alluring person to entice the guests into staying.

Lights down, a lone spotlight drops onto the space where Danni stands on the stage, the rest of the jazz band dimly lit behind her. Her curled hair pools around her bare shoulders like liquid fire, highlights shining burnished copper at the crown of her head like a halo. The curves of her crimson lips nearly kiss the microphone as she leans forward and begins to sing, smoke-haze of a voice that matches the atmosphere, the subtle pluck of a bass string there to escort her into the beginning of the song.

_“You had plenty money, 1922_  
_You let other women make a fool of you_  
_Why don’t you do right?  
_ _Like some other men do?”_

Jared watches her voice work its magic; breathy and girlish, deep and full-throated, innocent and knowing at the same time. She turns heads with minimal effort, one hand on the hip of her sequined dress, red glinting silver under the spotlight, bare leg stepping out through the long slit as she walks toward the edge of the stage, singing into the microphone, dark eyes sizing up everyone in the crowd.

The place is packed tonight, and Danneel just cemented that no one is going to be leaving any time soon. Perfect. The space around the dance floor is filled with tables clustered together while the dance floor has already begun to fill with bodies that sway together. There’s a scent in the air that smells one part smoke, two parts whiskey and three parts nostalgia. The air is heady, thick with music and age that doesn’t quite fit with the world just outside the door.

The perfect seduction, Jared thinks to himself, enough that no one will notice the negotiations happening right in the midst of it.

 _“You're sittin' down wonderin' what it's all about  
__If you ain't got no money they will put you out-”_  

Eyes opening, leveling on the crowd, hips swinging as she takes another step forward, leaning and locking eyes with a man close to the stage.

_“Why don't you do right, like some other men do?”_

She’s in her element, that’s clear. But this... everything about this place. It’s all staged. A jazz club in 2016, a place where people come to roleplay and live in days gone by. A copy of a point in time that maybe never existed anywhere except for in the movies. Jared sees that now, the cleverly hid façade.

Organized crime can exist in this world, the setting alone practically encourages it.

Looking around him, Jared can almost believe he’s been sent back in time, everyone dressed to the nines. Smoke rising in the air, glasses held delicately, clear and amber liquid swirled in ice before taking a sip. Men dressed in dark suits, women in glittering dresses, and it could be 1930, 1940.

Still, façade aside, she’s killing it.

Jared watches her politely from the corner of the room, one eye on the entertainment, the other on Jensen—greeting guests over by the door with Gen. Gen, dressed in a deep blue gown, her arm primly looped through Jensen’s, looks like a goddess, the diamonds in her ears and around her neck making her look like royalty, a princess who stumbled into the poor man’s speakeasy.

Following their plan, Jared keeps his distance, but he can’t help the tension in his body, straining forward, when he sees Mark Pellegrino enter the club. He doesn’t even see Pellegrino at first, but rather the imperceptible tightening of Jensen’s face, the ramrod line of his spine, the shark like flash of teeth in his smile. The Businessman has entered the room.

Jared’s only ever seen photos, files that he’d snatched from Jensen’s desk and studied, but he can see within seconds, the personality that the photos never quite picked up comes swinging into view. Pellegrino, Jared surmises, is a man of constant hunger. It shows in the curl of his lip, the way he shakes Jensen’s hand promptly, but lingers a bit too long as he kisses Gen’s hand. It reminds Jared, offhandedly, of Stuart. He hadn’t expected there to be such a resemblance between employer and employee. It’s unsettling. But the exchange is over in a heartbeat, Pellegrino snatching a cocktail off a tray and letting Alona show him to his assigned seat.

Over the next half hour, Jared catches sight of over half a dozen men on the FBIs most wanted list, all of them wearing pressed slacks and bringing dates that look like something off the Vogue runway. Ty Olson from the New Orleans mob, Sheppard from Los Angeles, a few other faces Jared recognizes from the Vegas area. Jensen greets every single one of them like family, handshakes and embraces altogether, but not for a second does he loosen his shoulders.

It is, essentially, the perfect plan, even if Jared isn’t quite sure what the plan is. When on the cusp of making enemies, Jensen had instead chosen to show the benefit of the doubt, welcome them all into his business as friends. Even if the main beef is with Pellegrino, by inviting other leaders of gangs in Jensen showed a sign of good faith, and respect. No man was lesser in importance, in the eyes of Jensen Ackles.

There’s only one person in the long line of ‘family friends’ that Jared doesn’t immediately recognize, a tall man, a bit of salt and pepper grey on his face. He looks more rugged than any of the other people that have entered the room and greeted Jensen, but Jared watches, puzzled, as Jensen manages to straighten even further, shake the man’s hand politely. There are no fake embraces. And it’s the first interaction Jared’s seen all evening that is genuine.

“Hey,” Jared snags at Chad’s sleeve as he walks by with a tray of drinks, “Who’s that guy?”

He pulls up next to Jared at the bannister, leaning over. “Hm. Old-timer. I don’t think I’ve ever met him. Definitely never done business with Jensen. Might be an old friend of his Dad’s.”

Chad’s pulled away by hands that clamor for alcohol, and Jared is left to watch the exchange between Jensen and the stranger. Across the room, Jared can spot Jensen absentmindedly fiddling with his father’s ring again, even after the stranger has ambled off into the ground, like he’s looking for someone, a date perhaps.

After lingering on the fringe of the room long enough, Jared finally edges into the center, aware of the attention he draws. He looks like something out of a Bond movie, the jacket of his ivory tux standing out like a beacon in a sea of black tie. He’d wondered at the choice in wardrobe, but Gen had been rather enigmatic, simply handing him the hanger with a soft, “You’ll thank me later.”

Jared had been left in the dark for most of the planning in this event, whether that was out of self-preservation for his own safety or Jensen’s sanity, remains to be seen. Whatever the motivation, it becomes quickly clear that Gen had specifically picked Jared’s wardrobe with intent. He stands out, when Jared’s pretty sure he was supposed to be blending in, for safety’s sake.

The only other person in a white tux in the entire club is Jensen. Jared singles him out like a target, makes his way through the throng of bodies and over to the craps table where Jensen stands. Jared doesn’t spot any of the other mob members, the eye of the theoretical storm.

Jared catches Jensen’s eye from across the table, and for a brief suspended moment, there’s a giddy enjoyment in both of their faces. A love for the thrill, and for the game. This whole ruse: a goddamn war council right in the middle of a party open to the public, and it’s just as exciting as it is dangerous. Jared has no idea of knowing when that changed, when the fear of this world changed inside him. He only knows that he understands Jensen more because of it.

There’s something else in the look Jensen gives him, more than the usual quiet assessment, like Jared’s being picked apart to have his parts examined individually. But before he’s able to properly investigate,

Jensen breaks his gaze and looks away, replying to a thread of conversation, and Jared slips back into the crowd of people around him.

Dinner and drinks commence without a problem, but halfway through Danneel’s second appearance onstage, the men and women begin to file upstairs, one by one, to where Jared can only assume is the rendezvous point. He slips out the emergency exit of the ballroom, heads up the stairs and around the back way to the privately sanctioned poker table rooms.

He was politely instructed by Jensen not to get involved, to not even be present in the rooms if he could help it. Politely being the operative word here, Jensen had all but sat him down and made him pinky promise to _stay out of it, Jared_. And yeah, Jared knows Jensen means well, especially given all the lengths he’s gone to for Jared’s safety thus far. But Jared isn’t a child who’s going to sit in time out while the grownups play. Despite his once existing reservations about all this, he’s too involved in the game to not be curious about what’s going on.

So without another thought, Jared pushes the door open and enters the dimly-lit room, glancing quickly behind him to make sure no one follows.

The room is small and narrow, a single card table surrounded by approximately eight chairs, evenly spaced. He recognizes most of the faces, counts them off one by one. Shepard, Olson, Speight. One woman, Jared’s mind supplies the name _Miner_ to go with dark haired curls, the stark contrast to her pale skin, talking to Brown, their heads bent together. The salt and peppered stranger takes up the corner of the table with his large frame, quieter than everyone else.

Everyone in the room is either there to play, or to lurk in the shadows, a visible threat without being too conspicuous. It feels, oddly, like a weird dick measuring contest. Which mob boss can have the biggest bodyguard hulking in the shadows. Jensen is the only one, really, who doesn’t have one.

Something tells Jared, though, that the vaguely recognizable employees dealing cards and serving drinks could, and would, pull a weapon just as quick as the others. Jared sticks close to the shadows, heads to the corner closest to the bar, tunes into the murmurs around him, polite small talk about family weddings and kids, and then:

“--Can do forty-sixty, Mark. Anything else is going to be tricky.” Jensen’s smiling wide, leaning over the table. He’s not drinking tonight, Jared notices. Whatever card game is about to take place, he’s about to use any and all focus on it.

Pellegrino shrugs, deceptively nonchalant. “You throw in the life of your ‘consultant’ over there and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

Jensen’s lips pull upwards at the joke, but his eyes ever so slightly flick over to Jared, and there is no mistaking the warning in there, the subtle _get the fuck out_ that Jensen conveys with eyes alone. “Funny, I don’t think the front desk accepts my employees as currency.”

“Funny, it did when your father ran this place.”

Jensen doesn’t respond, but Pellegrino has already looked past him, directly at Jared. His gaze seems indifferent, even though Jared knows it’s anything but, as he feels it almost bore right into his skull. A cold sweat breaks out at the nape of his neck.

“Shall we try and understand what exactly it is you’re so protective over?” Pellegrino muses, his voice oily. “Do you know how to play poker... kid?”

“Jared Padalecki, and yeah.” Jared shrugs, “I know my way around a deck of cards, but,” Jared casts a glance at Jensen, whose face has gone deceptively blank, “I’d rather not.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Pellegrino sweeps half of his chips across the table in Jared’s direction. “I’ll even give you some money to bet with. No need to be excluded.”

It’s a trap, Jared knows from the second Pellegrino smiles. To refuse the generous gift of half Pellegrino’s chips would be disrespectful. To play would also be crossing a dangerous line that Jared knows he was supposed to avoid on an evening like this.

He doesn’t risk a glance at Jensen. Pellegrino went over his head for a reason. It’s a measure of Jared’s character, if he’s of substance, or if he’s just another crony to follow orders blindly.

Jared doesn’t deliberate a second further, he doesn’t give himself the luxury of fear, of worry, of wondering if he’s about to make a huge mistake. He squares his shoulders, emerges from the shadows, and sits next to Jensen, across from Pellegrino.

“Thank you for the invitation.” Jared smiles. “But I promise you, I’m abysmal at poker.”

“Excellent,” Pellegrino responds. “I love winning.”

If there are other men in the room, it is hard to pay them any heed as threats in this moment. The cards are dealt, the chips are stacked, and the game begins.

The game seems to stretch on forever, the pot expanding with each passing round, the cards passed silently.  There comes a moment where Jared knows he should give up, should fold, because Jensen has folded, because most of the men around the table have. The poker chips go up. It’s practically Jared’s savings from the last six months piled up on the table, plus Pellegrino’s contribution. It isn’t a lot, but he’s matching with Pellegrino’s raises.

Finally, it’s only Jared and Pellegrino left at the table, and the cold sweat at the nape of Jared’s neck has slowly spread down to his lower back. He hopes it isn’t noticeable through his white jacket.

There is a moment when Jared thinks that it is time to turn back, makes a fleeting moment of eye contact with Jensen out of the corner of his eye. His poker face remains perfectly blank, but Jared knows, _knows_ that Jensen is watching his every move with a single-minded intensity. Jensen’s expression remains cool and unreadable as ever but his eyes are blazing, bright and warm. It’s every bit of warning for Jared to stay out of this, and all the encouragement Jared needs to keep going.  

Not because it’s necessarily smart, but Jared knows he can beat Pellegrino. Jensen doesn’t have to go belly up to get what he wants. Jared can be smarter; Jared can be better.

He is better, in the end. Mark Pellegrino slaps down a straight flush, and Jared tops him with a royal flush, revealing the cards gently and calmly, hardly making a sound.  The room goes, very suddenly, silent and still.  Jared finally lets his mask relax into a smile high off the feeling of triumph humming in his chest like a well-oiled motor.

Pellegrino’s lip curls again, expression soured. “What is this?”

Jensen isn’t outright laughing, but Jared can spot the mirth dancing in his eyes. It feels glorious, that attention, and even if Jensen absolutely chews him out later, the look on his face in this moment, quietly amused and struggling to keep it check, it will have been worth it.

His euphoria is short-lived, however. A hyena like cackle interrupts them, Pellegrino laughing, reaching into his breast pocket and taking out another thick cigar, lighting it and taking a heady drag.

“Cute party trick, Ackles. But it’s going to take more than showing off your accountant to change the fact that you owe me. Blood for blood.”

“How much could he have been worth? He wasn’t that good at his job, after all.”

Pellegrino purses his lips in consideration. “Well, since we’re no longer bargaining human lives here, I’d say he’s worth most of your stash in this mysterious traveling stash of heroin you’ve got.”

Jensen smiles tightly, like he isn’t surprised by any of this conversation. “You want a bigger cut of the deal.”

“I want a bigger portion of the deal,” Pellegrino repeats. “I want seventy five percent of the profit, as a matter of fact. Plus interest.”

Jared’s temper flares, barely resisting jumping to his feet, “You’ve got to be out of your fucking _mind_.”

The tension in the room pulls impossibly tighter, a rubber band seconds from snapping.

“Jared.”  It’s said with all the conversational politeness of a gentleman, as if Jensen means to tell Jared that his shoe is untied. But the word carries a permafrost blade in it. Jared’s mouth clamps shut, forces himself to keep still in his seat.

Jensen smiles again, but the expression goes nowhere near his eyes, which are fixed on Pellegrino. “C’mon, Mark. You know me. I’m a giving man, but I’m not a saint.”

“You killed my man, Ackles.” Pellegrino blows a puff of blue grey smoke, watching it curl in the air. “You killed two of my men, actually. Granted, he was just the driver. But it’s the principle of the thing.”

“Your man tried to rape my financial consultant. The driver was just collateral.”

Pellegrino’s eyes flick over to Jared again, the cards spread wide on the table. "Being that I'm a busy man, and not a human resources department, I don't see how I'm to blame. But I'm sure I can be reasonable about you murdering one of my men--providing you can offer _proof_ he actually did as you said."

It’s not an inflammatory statement enough that Jared can outwardly react to it, mostly because everything in Jensen’s perfectly polite tone keeps him from even speaking. Nevertheless, his hands clench, nails digging into his palms as the skin across his knuckles pulls taut and white. He’s all too aware of every molecule of tension in the room, of all eyes on them, waiting to see what will happen next.

“The truth is,” Pellegrino leans back in his seat, palms pressed to the green felt of the card table, “We--that is, me and these other fine gentleman--are not exactly sure of your intentions here, Ackles.” He smirks. “Your father was a bastard, but he at least knew the meaning of family, respected the laws of blood and honor. Which is more than I can say for you.”

“My father was paranoid and crooked,” Jensen says sharply. “You’ll do well to remember just what his business practices lost us, and how much needless blood he spilt. I am not my father.”

“This whole dark knight routine is getting clichéd and frankly, a bit disappointing, Jenny-Bean.” Pellegrino responds, the nickname sending tittering chuckles through the rest of the men, as he drags out every last syllable.

It seems so arbitrary to Jared, but the name riles something in Jensen that would be obvious if these people knew Jensen. They do not, but Jared does, and Jared notices the tightening around his eyes, the minute thinning of his lips.

“Either you give us our three fourths cut,” Pellegrino breathes, “Or I will burn your so called empire to the ground. And all your little Harvard buddies and your toys,” he casts one dismissive glance in Jared’s direction, “Will go down with it.”

“This may have been your Daddy’s playground once, Ackles, but you’re still in kindergarten. Be careful what happens when you try to play with the big boys before you’re ready.”

Pellegrino and his men file out one by one. Quietly, discreetly, the room disperses, and everyone returns to the party. Jensen shakes hands and exchanges quick thank yous all over again. Jensen doesn’t even once glance at Jared, clears the room before Jared can even make an effort to speak to him. It hadn’t occurred to Jared, really, how much Jensen is sticking his neck out for him, without explanation or justification. There is a whole slew of things Jared wants to ask, first of them being why Jensen is even doing this, but Jensen seems a bit too preoccupied to really answer those questions.

It’s not really needed, though. Jared may not speak fluent mob, but the gist of that interaction is abundantly clear. An invisible target sign had been painted on his chest, and Jared was in more danger than he ever was before.

If they could not find a way to satisfy Pellegrino, it would mean the very thing that Jensen had strived to avoid: war.

 

\--

The party continues well past midnight, the jazz band blasting merrily and swing dancers flinging their arms left and right. It’s an all-out rager, from the looks of it, the merry jive from when Jared had first entered the poker rooms somehow grown into an all-out frenzy of drunken wildness. It doesn’t matter. Jared keeps his eye solely on one person.

No one notices when Jensen slips out of the room, head tucked down, brow furrowed, no longer the glassy expression of politeness it had been most of the evening. Jared only notices because he hasn’t kept an eye on anyone else the whole night, was there to witness the glassy transformation to anger, like Jekyll to Hyde.

Jensen leaves, Jared follows, back behind the concierge desk, away from the cacophony of sound on the dance floor, all the way into his office. Jared pushes the door open just as Jensen’s already pouring himself a hefty glass of whiskey. He looks haunted, barely flinches at the taste of his first mouthful.

“Okay,” Jared starts, “So that could have gone better.”

“Yeah,” Jensen snarls derisively in agreement. “No fucking _shit_.”

Jensen looks angry, which Jared hadn’t seen coming. Not annoyed or vexed, but well and truly worked up into a fierce rage. It is the first time, if ever, that Jared has seen that steady mask of control slip up for more than a split second.

Good, he thinks savagely. Rage he could work with. Rage was better than the glassy and polished surface of control. Any other person would walk away; let the Boss work his own shit out.

Jared does not.

“Okay so it was a disaster.” Jared pushes off the doorframe he was leaning on and follows Jensen to the window, where he stares out over the blinking lights of the city. “But you can’t just let Pellegrino walk all over you and do what he wants. We’ve come too far to back down—”

“What is the point, Jared?”

“I--What?”

“What. Is. The. Point.” Jensen enunciates, glaring hard at the city, face visibly working to remain in control, and failing miserably. “To any of this? What is the point of bothering to try and fix this city if there’s no way of doing it without others getting hurt, or giving power over to those who would abuse it? There’s no fucking point, that’s the problem.”

“I know this isn’t ideal,” Jared huffs, “But you don’t get to throw a temper tantrum now just because the going gets tough. It was never going to be easy, striking a business deal to make sure the shipment is handled properly.”

Jensen turns his offended gaze on Jared as if he just said something incredibly stupid. “What is your problem, huh? What makes you look at the world and decide that anything is possible if you just believe?”

“I’m not saying this business deal is going to be easy, god knows it’s not, but you don’t get to fucking _give up_ because you hit a roadblock, Jensen.”

“My hands are tied. I’ve got no choice but to make the deal. I can’t fix this. I can’t make it better,” Jensen says, the anger on face painted with a quieter pain. He looks out at the city again, swilling the glass of whiskey in his hand. “My father was right.”

Jared’s never met Jensen’s father, but he suddenly, viscerally, hates him with every fiber of his being.

“If you give up this easy, then yes,” Jared says solemnly, “He is.”

“You don’t get it.” Jensen pinches the bridge of his nose. “If we make the wrong move, if we don’t fucking _appease_ these fuckers, it will be an all out war. There will be casualties, and not just on the gangs. I didn’t come here to wage war. I want peace. But all I’ve become is a war monger, a common criminal. It doesn’t matter what I do.”

“But if you just listened to me for one goddamn second and stood your fucking _ground_ —”

“What do you know about this world?” Jensen spits. “ _My_ world. What makes you think you can just come in here and—”

“Because you fucking invited me!” Jared shouts, his frustration bubbling over to jabbing frothing anger. “You gave me this job, you told me I had an eye for the details, and that my job was to keep you out of trouble. You trusted me to help clean up your mess.”

“You’re not my nanny.”

“Yeah, well maybe you need one, because right now you’re acting like a spoiled brat who’s never heard the word ‘no’ once in his fucking life. And being the kid who’s never heard anything but, I can tell you that I know a lost cause when I see one, and this scenario ain’t it. We can win them. I promise you. You just can’t back down. We can—”

“Jared—”

“If you just stopped being—”

“Stop it—”

“So goddamn bull headed and martyring yourself for the sake of your own fucking—”

“I’ve had enough, Jared.”

“---ego for one fucking second and stood your ground, heard me out, then maybe some of what I’m saying would filter through your thick skull and you could fix this mess—”

“ _Enough_.”

“—you self-centered son of a bitch—”

“I said enough Jared!” Jensen roars, and hurls his glass of whiskey against the opposite wall.

It bursts apart like a snowball, shards of glass skittering across the wooden floor. Jensen stares at it, shoulders heaving, wild eyed.

Jared shuts his mouth, but he stands, eyebrows raised, _daring_ Jensen to justify the outburst. Jensen doesn’t, merely softens the tone of his voice, stares at the glass, at the whiskey dripping down the wall. He isn’t yelling anymore, but his next words hold all the blaze of contained fire, burning in fast and directed lines across the room.

“I am a criminal. A thug. There is no way to escape that, not in a world where blood begets blood. But I cannot make you understand that, and I cannot let you tell me what to do as if you _understand_ me, as if you know anything about me. Your insolence and stubbornness embarrassed me tonight. You’re a smart kid but you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Get out. You’re fired.”

Jared’s stomach drops, but he glares at Jensen with everything he’s got, skeptical and pissed as hell.

“Just like that?”

The line of tension and clench of jaw tells everything Jared doesn’t hear; it’s time to get out of here before he makes it worse.

Yes, just like that.

“I’ll be packed up and moved out by lunchtime,” Jared says, standing and stretching, rolling out a kink in his neck. The panic of what to do next, of how to survive, doesn’t set in, kept at bay in the midst of the wrongness of the moment. He’s walking out of the room, but it doesn’t feel like he’s stepping out of the ring on this fight. For whatever reasons, he cannot just leave. He cannot leave this job, leave Jensen to make the biggest mistake of his life. But Jensen seems determined to believe that there’s no hope of fixing this without war, no side step possible. Jared knows that indecision, compliance, is the worst possible reaction to have. But he hasn’t been able to light a fire under Jensen’s ass, so what can he do? What is there to say in the span of distance between him and the door that could make Jensen realize how wrong he is?

Jared’s all the way to the door when he stops suddenly, heart slamming in his chest. He should leave, he needs to leave, but Jensen just looks so alone standing by the widow, the entire city behind him, staring at the glass on the floor.

He has no obligation; no reason to open his mouth right now. None whatsoever. He doesn’t owe Jensen Ackles anything.

“You're wrong, you know.” Jared hears himself say it before he's even aware of what's happening, turned on heel and facing Sin City’s mob boss with a level stare.  
  
“Wrong about what?” Jensen says flatly.

They stare at each other, an impasse of challenge, but Jared doesn’t stop, the words spilling out like a bottle rocket going off too early, something he didn’t quite plan for to happen.  
  
“You're wrong about what you do. You are not a thug; you are not a warmonger. Look what you did for this city in two years, Jensen. Do you see what you did? Because I do, and it was more than any legal law enforcement could hope to do in decades. _You_ did that, started from scratch and climbed your way to the top of a city. Two years. Seven hundred days give or take. That's not some small feat. You may not have asked to adopt children but you have a cohort that would take bullets for you. Do you think Tom could afford night classes if it weren't for you? Or Chad could even help support his sister and her kid? You think any of them would have the discipline, the loyalty, if it weren’t for you?”  
  
Across the room, Jensen has gone very still, the blinds casting shadows on his face, making it impossible for Jared to see his reaction. He stands silently, and Jared for the life of him can't shut up.  
  
“Look, I have no illusions about what it is that you do. But you are not a common criminal, Jensen Ackles. You're not. I have seen you. You protect the innocent and you keep the drugs clean and the rapists off the street and the good people safe, and that is more than anyone else in this fucked up town can say by way of committed sins. So don't you dare act like this is nothing, all because of one opinion. This city is in the palm of your hand, and no one could have the strength and dignity to treat it as gently as you. Don't demean that because it’s not always easy. Don't you dare.”  
  
Silence. Jared hears his heartbeat in his ears but he doesn’t stop, only lowers his voice, speaks straight and simple, feeling scrubbed raw, adjusting his white knuckled grip on the doorknob and feel like he’s going to keel over. He hardly knows what he is saying anymore, but he means it more than he’s ever meant anything in his life.  
  
“What you do has value, Jensen,” He says, “It has value and it is important and it is good.”  
  
Jensen still hasn't moved.  
  
Jared walks out, heart feeling like it’s going to fucking explode in his chest. It's not pain so much as it’s a heart attack, Jared's skin tight and his hands shaking as he gets into to elevator across the hallway and attempts several times to press the correct button for his floor.  
  
As the doors close, Jared swears he sees Jensen wipe at his face.

\--

Despite the exhaustion of the day, sleep avoids Jared, his body restless and antsy. He’s barely managed a few hours before he decides _fuck it_ and begins to pack up his things, types up his letter of resignation. He can go to the office without making a scene, better that way to avoid Gen and everyone else. Jared’s never been great at goodbyes and he’s not about to start now. He starts by heading down to the offices first thing in the morning, begins to put everything in a large cardboard box.

He puts coffee on in the mini kitchen, the warm morning sun glinting off the Stratosphere Hotel and shining in his eyes. As he looks out the window, he thinks that this particular view of his city isn’t half bad.

He’s going to miss this place terribly, can’t track when it exactly became a home, just knows that it has. The coffee starts to percolate and Jared heads out back to his desk, sorts his documents into piles for the shredder and stuff that’s his. He’s almost done sorting through the bunch when his door opens.

“’Morning.”

Jensen sounds rested, and though he looks exhausted, the dark circles under his eyes don’t look as haunting as they did last night. His eyes are clear of drowsiness, even as they squint against the sunlight like a vampire cringing away back into his coffin.

Last night stands as the elephant in the room, huge and raw between them. There’s no telling how much Jensen hates Jared for what he had said, he hadn’t stuck around for that exact purpose.

“Hi,” Jared says, and feels that strange swell in his chest that feels like a coronary symptom. He had enough hours in the night to properly mull over the feeling, has likely deciphered what it means, where it’s headed. He’d never seen it coming, and by the looks of how he’s reacting after last night, it doesn’t seem to be going away.

He ignores the swell, continues methodically stacking folders and staplers and the like into his moving box. Jensen moves briefly to the mini-kitchen and begins to make himself a cup, pour the cream, avoid the sugar, and puts it to his lips without checking the temperature, hissing low when it burns his mouth.

When he’s drunk half the cup and Jared’s up to packing the last box, Jensen looks up, a bit more roused, eyes a bit more open. He looks at Jared for another long beat.

“I know I’ve been giving you shit, which isn’t warranted,” Jensen says slowly. “And I know I haven’t trusted you, which also isn’t warranted. But.” He frowns, and then looks up, settling a soft and unreadable gaze on Jared. “I always feel better after I talk to you. No matter what. I wanted you to know that.”

Jared’s skull moves up and down like it’s hinged on springs, breath feeling tight in his lungs, like he’s on the peak of Everest. He doesn’t know what to do with the pressure expanding in his chest, he doesn’t know where to divvy it up and shelve it away. It’s not something he can physical file, demanding attention and space even as he wishes it wouldn’t.

He pushes his ‘shred’ pile to the corner of the desk, snatches up the last few paper clips. “Thank you.”

He keeps packing, Jensen keeps talking.

“I apologize for my behavior last night. And I would be obliged, no, _humbled_ , if you stayed at your job here. I understand that my words were harsh, and I apologize for that, and if you decide you still want to go I fully respect that. But know you will always be welcome here, you will always be part of this family, have the protection of this family. You will be missed very much after you leave.”

Jensen falls into silence, and Jared does nothing to break it, his hands only stilling on the edge of his box.

Jensen adds, “You were right, to some extent. My work is of value and dignity, but only because you are here to make it that way. So I am asking you—selfishly, yes, I’m aware—to stay. Will you?”

Without looking up, without so much as a word, Jared takes his pencil cup and stapler out of the box, puts them down gently on the desk where they belong. He takes his seat. He opens up the last quarter’s spreadsheets.

Jensen walks back to get another cup of coffee from the mini-kitchen, humming to himself.

\--

With little to no ceremony, they get back to work.

Pellegrino’s words hang over them like a stubborn raincloud and even though they are more cautious than ever, the threat remains.

They’re weak as an organization, and Jensen knows it. Unable to do business without drawing major attention to themselves in regards to the massive amounts of drugs, they’re sitting ducks waiting to be picked off.

Yet as stagnant as the criminal surface remains, things are altering behind the front lines.

The fight between he and Jensen on the Casino Night was a mountain Jared hadn’t realized they’d climbed until they were over it. There are changes noticeable and immediate in Jensen’s demeanor towards him. He asks for Jared’s opinion more often than not, often giving long and measured consideration before agreeing or disagreeing. There is not an ounce of disregard for Jared’s lack of experience or knowledge. Jensen listens to him, almost as much as he listens to Gen, even.

Some part of what Jared had said that night appears to have burst apart Jensen’s walls like a battering ram. Jensen is always professional and put together, always, but now he directs those attentions to Jared, rather than against him.

They scour their information for someone who might want to do business, but the more people Jensen reaches out to, sets feelers towards, the less results they turn up. Pellegrino’s word of Jensen’s reputation seems to spread like poison, making other mobsters wary, downright paranoid, that Jensen will kill their guys too.

The nights are long, and the work is longer, but Jared is secretly and selfishly grateful for the increasing amount of hours he spends in Jensen’s company, be it in silence, debate, or exhausted scrambling for more ideas.  

It’s not so much that Jared’s view of Jensen has changed, but rather that he actually understands what that view is. That fight had been just as much of a breaking point for Jared; he’d given one of the most impassioned speeches of his life on the spot, and he’d meant every goddamn word. It brought a startling moment of clarity to the situation, and the rather embarrassing realization that Jared—despite his best efforts—had never escaped his feelings for Jensen, not really. He’d built a wall, a solid and stubborn list of all the reasons Jensen was not likeable or worth it, but his feelings had grown under and over it, slowly tearing that wall down.

It’s three quarters of the way through a fresh pot of coffee and the midnight oil when Jensen suddenly bolts upright, an idea forming on his face in the shape of wide eyed inspiration.

“Oh,” Jensen says softly, and dives for a file, the inspiration on his face settling back down into concentration.

“What is it?” Jared asks, setting down a list of local Cartel distributors.

“Jeff Morgan.” Jensen thumbs through a few papers, tossing them aside. “My dad’s old capo. His best friend, really, at least when I was growin’ up.”

Jared comes up behind Jensen, oddly conscious of keeping a respectful distance between them, and peers down at the file. Not much in it, but the photo staring at them says all Jensen doesn’t. There’s his father, younger, almost Jensen’s age, his arm around a taller, younger guy with hulking shoulders and a smudge of grizzly facial hair.

“Wait! I know him!” Jared jabs at the guy. “He was at the Casino night, in the poker room!”

“Yeah. That’s Jeff.” Jensen nods. “He came by to say hi that night, see how I was doing. He always looked after me when I was little, sort of like the cool uncle I never had.”

“Why didn’t you think to go into business with him before?”

“Because,” Jensen replies, “Jeff and my dad had a godawful falling out, few years before Dad died. Nearly ended with Dad shooting Jeff in cold blood. I don’t exactly know what went down, Jeff won’t talk about it, and my Dad only ever yelled about it. Bottom line, Jeff didn’t like the way Dad was running things, getting corrupt, fucking people over. So Jeff took a few of Dad’s guys and went up to Reno, started an arms dealing ring up there, small-time. He’s got a wife, too, Hilarie, and, well, she’s just the best. He’s a good man, Jeff. In a lot of ways, he’s garnered more respect than my dad. Not power, but respect. He doesn’t really work with any of the other gangs, keeps to himself mostly, but maybe…”

Jensen trails off in thought, eyes darting back and forth across the desk, fingers fluttering in a trill on the pad of paper beneath them.

“Want me to draw up a business plan?” Jared asks gently. Jensen’s got that look in his eyes, the look from the poker game, the one that gets something going in Jared. He’s not even sure what exactly the something is, only that it hits him like adrenaline, like caffeine.

“Yeah. Yeah. I’ll give Jeff a call.” Jensen makes to clap him on the shoulder, but the gesture ends up as something else entirely, a moment of eye contact where Jensen’s hand has settled around the nape of Jared’s neck and Jared has forgotten how to breathe.

The cracked open and messy feeling from the other night hasn’t left Jared’s chest. It only builds and multiplies in the infinitesimal moments between them that seem to become more frequent every day. To an outsider, it looks harmless.

To Jared, it feels the slightest bit like drowning.

“Good luck,” he says, cutting through the space between them and escaping to do research on Jeff Morgan. He doesn’t have to think about anything else except the job at hand, and thank God for that.

 

\--

 

Both Jeff Morgan and his wife Hilarie are—without exaggeration—a striking couple. Even in his inferior height, Jeff seems to tower over Jared in sheer substance alone, voice rumbling with the calm and measured timbre of a rockslide, his presence much larger than it had seemed the night in the Casino. Hilarie is all glamour, like an old Hollywood movie star straight out of the black and white pictures. Her green eyes give even Jensen a run for his money, and her hair sits in flawless golden waves pinned loosely at the back of her head. She’s got a sundress and sandals and her arm is loosely looped through Jeff’s as they approach Jared and Jensen at the five star restaurant in Reno that Jeff had suggested they meet in.

Before they’ve even said a word to them, Jared can tell immediately that they’re the most powerful people in the room, if not the entire city block.

“Jensen, m’boy.” Jeff claps Jensen on the back, a truly affectionate embrace. “It’s good to see you again, son.”

“Thank you for meeting with us,” Jensen says humbly. “Believe me when I say the pleasure is all mine. Hello, Hilarie.”

“Hi Jensen.” Hilarie presses a kiss to his cheek, “Sharply dressed and polite as always. Sit down, hon.”

Her laughing eyes light on Jared, smile widening. “Oh? And who’s this?”

“This is my trusted financial advisor, Jared Padalecki. He’ll be the brains for this evening.”

Jared internally rolls his eyes at that, but steps forward, offers a hand. “So pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise,” Jeff says. “You know your way around a hand of cards, kid. Played a damn good game that night against Pellegrino. Impressive.”

Jared flushes, and Hilarie laughs, a loud whiplash of a cackle, and embraces him with a kiss too like she did Jensen, smelling of honeysuckle and mint. It’s not until then that Jared suddenly understands the look Jensen is giving Hilarie. Give or take a few facial structures and skin tone, she bears a rather uncanny representation to Jensen’s mother, given what Jared knows of her from photographs and Jensen himself.

“Well Jared, Jensen tells me you’ve got quite the business proposal here.” Jeff’s eyes are dancing, and he leans back in his chair as he sits, clearly comfortable.

“I’d like to think so. I’ve worked my ass off on it,” Jared says, completely honest, which makes Hilarie laugh again.

Jared is not fooled one minute into thinking anything about this is easy, despite the affectionate air at the table. Hilarie and Jeff show all the southern gentility of the perfect hosts, but Jared also knows that Hilarie’s presence here is not just to appear as Jeff’s date and balance the table out. With every point of the business proposal that Jared utters, he directs half of his eye contact to her, not daring to shy away from her polite smile, or ignore the piercing observation of her gaze. It is clear from the get go that these two are a unit, and if Jared does not impress one of them, then he does not impress both of them, and therefore fails.

The flight up to Reno had given plenty of time for Jared to prepare himself for this, and he can feel the unwavering silent support of his boss. Jared walks through the business proposal with a confidence that surprises even him, not an ounce of it pretend. He feels absolutely in his element, despite everything that’s dangerously at stake with this.

He talks until he is practically hoarse, sips water only on occasion, but mostly takes off with the momentum spurred by adrenalin and the steady presence of Jensen beside him. Whether Jensen is aware of it or not, their knees are pressed together underneath the table, and that fact alone gives Jared the strength he needs to finish strong, hit that home run.

“The bottom line is this: We can take our business to the Cartels, or any of the other gangs who want a piece of the pot. But we want, and hope for, a mutually beneficial relationship. The crime business will suffer if we lose this shipment. So we are asking you, politely, to partner with us.”

Silence, as the waiter places the food before them, adding Parmesan cheese and pepper to the pastas.

“Let’s eat, shall we?” Jeff grins, reaching for his fork, and it’s only when Jared smells the food that he realizes how hungry he is.

They eat their entire meal, bantering, telling stories. Jared does not question it, throws himself wholeheartedly into the act of charm, pulling more cackles out of Hilarie, a few wry smiles out of Jeff.

Jensen, for all his stoicism, makes a rather perfect partner to bounce jokes off of, quick on the uptake, and always adding the snappy button at the end to finish it off. He’s certainly not as talkative as Jared is, but the times he does speak ring with earnestness, and an unapologetic statement of how he feels about any particular topic of conversation.

It is clear that Jeff and Hilarie—business plans or not—adore Jensen, and when they tell Jared the story of how Jensen was the one who set them up on their first date, Jensen goes absolutely red with embarrassment. The Morgans talk Jared through every second of their courtship and Jensen’s involvement in it, their own storytelling routine of romance and adventure, of Hilarie Burton the aimless art student with a law degree and Jeff Morgan the poor man’s mobster. Every time they refer to Jensen with such glowing praise, Jared can practically feel him relaxing more and more into his seat. 

By the time the check arrives, Jared’s practically forgotten what they came for, he was having such a good time.

The check sits on the table, a tab any one of them could easily pay off, but something tells Jared this is the moment of verdict, and so he mimics Jensen, and remains perfectly still.

Jeff eyes Jared, and then his gaze flicks over to Jensen. “Your daddy would never have done something like this." 

Jensen does not flinch away. “Yes sir, that’s true.”

“Your daddy was a selfish and cold sonofabitch,” Jeff says slowly. “But I’m glad to see that you, not so much. We’ll go into business with you, Ackles. And let us hope that it inspires more collaboration in the future.”

He picks up the check. They shake hands. Hilarie makes Jared promise to stop by and say hello when he gets the chance, take a weekend trip up to their place.

“I’ll come by in a few days’ time to sign the official documents,” Jeff says, rising slowly after dropping several crisp looking hundred dollar bills onto the table. “It’ll be a pleasure doing business with you, kid. Nice meeting you, Jared, again. Let’s play cards sometime.”

“Likewise, sir, and I’d love that,” Jared chirps, waving as they exit together, Jeff guiding Hilarie by the small of her slender back as they walk out.

They watch until the couple has disappeared from view, and then Jared sneaks a look over at Jensen.

They’re in public; it’s probably not appropriate to burst out into relieved cheers and dancing, but holding himself back is worth the look on Jensen’s face. Energy sings off of him, his green eyes are bright and fixed solely on Jared. His face is locked in a smile that’s almost a laugh, open and unrestrained. It’s a bit dizzying, and Jared can’t tell if the gallop of his heart is the adrenaline of success or something else entirely. 

Jared tries to force his gaze away in self-preservation, before he’s drawn in like a helpless orbiting satellite to the incineration of the fucking sun. “So…uh… celebration is in order, yeah? Should we go get some beer and pizza again?”

“Fuck that,” Jensen says, an expression of such manic excitement gracing his face that Jared’s almost blinded by it. There’s no avoiding it, and Jared’s realizing that he doesn’t really want to. “We’re going to fucking _party_.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

They throw, without much planning or promotion, the biggest fucking party on the Strip that entire week.

Jared can’t even say what the official reasoning of the party is for. A fake birthday, a fake wedding, a fake business anniversary of some sort. Whatever the excuse, not twenty-four hours after Jeff Morgan agrees to go into business with Jensen, the ballroom is full of hundreds of swanky dressed people, tearing up the dance floor. Danneel and the band are in full swing, bar is open all night, and Jared’s certainly never seen such a celebration in his entire life.

He’s certainly never partaken in one, that’s for sure.

The party is already well into act two by the time he arrives, decked out in a dark suit, maroon tie, that Gen had express mailed him in the past twenty-four hours, insisting it was her treat. Jared’s having a hard time simply spotting a familiar face in the crowd, when Genevieve comes over, flushed and tottering a bit in her heels. She’s positively tipsy, and it’s positively adorable, hair in pin curls that make it look like she’s got a bob, the maroon of her dress tastefully matching his tie. From the looks of it, all the staff is color coordinated tonight.

“You,” she grabs Jared’s shoulders like he’s her center of happily drunk gravity, “Are without a doubt the craziest sonofabitch I have ever met in my entire life. But goddammit we’re so lucky to have you. I could literally kiss you right now.”

“I mean, if you must.” Jared shrugs, laughing despite himself as Genevieve smacks another kiss on his lips, looking far happier and carefree than he’s ever seen her.

“Hey, have you seen Jensen?” Jared shouts over the big band music blasting.

“I haven’t! Maybe check out over by the bar?” Gen shouts back.

Jared, spotting a familiar head of spiky blonde hair over the bar, heads over. It’s not Jensen, but there’s an odd comfort in seeing Chad, pouring shots and cocktails, looking rather put together in his own little vest and suspenders, hair gelled and styled to the side. Jared likes Chad, on the level of Gen, or Jensen, in that his endless bluntness and borderline insulting sense of humor never seems to rub Jared the wrong way, even when it should.

“You look like something straight out of a 1950s noir film.” Jared teases, and Chad groans.

“Fuckin’ Danneel and her costume party shit, I was coerced into wearing this.” Chad shakes a martini maker and pours for a young couple thrusting their credit cards at him.

“Still, you look handsome,” Jared jokes, and Chad snorts.

“Yeah, but fuck knows all eyes will be on your perky ass tonight.” Chad jokes. “You clean up nice, Jay, anyone ever tell you that?”

Jared looks down at the suit, the impeccable tie, and flushes, pleased. “I’m alright.”

“Yeah yeah, listen, it’s a fucking zoo in here.” He complains. “I’m almost out of half the stuff behind the bar. Tom and Mike will be coming on shift soon. Grab me some maraschino cherries from the back of the bar, will you?”

Jared nods, heads to the back of the bar, into one of the many storerooms for alcohol, momentarily distracted, and kind of grateful for it. He’d spent too long retying his tie before coming down, trying to get his hair to not look like such a helpless mop, curling at the ends after a hot shower. He’s got no right to be nervous, so maybe it’ll do him good to help Chad from behind the bar a bit, indulge in busy work.

“Cherries,” Jared mutters to himself, scanning the store shelves, bottles upon bottles liquor but not one jar of maraschino cherries in sight, “Cherries cherries cherries.”

“Corner of the bottom left shelf, all the way in the back.”

Jared jumps, whipping around to find Jensen leaning against the doorframe, hands in his pockets.

“Jesus Christ, you scared the hell out of me.” Jared laughs shakily. “What brings you into the store rooms, don’t you have a party to run?”

He hasn’t really spoken with Jensen since before the meeting with Jeff and Hilarie, the brief hug they’d shared had been awkward the second it ended, and the preparations for the big bash had kept them apart for the rest of the day. Until now.

Jensen shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. Chad send you on an inventory run?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

They stare at each other across the space of the small pantry. Heat rises in Jared’s cheeks. He busies himself with crouching down and shoving aside bottles of Bailey’s to get at the corner of the bottom shelf. “Did you need something?”

“Actually I do.” Jensen’s voice makes Jared still, hand outstretched. “I wanted to thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, thank your nifty bartender. He’s a bit frantic, I figured I’d help him out.”

“I’m not thanking you for getting cherries, Jared.”

Jared knocks over a can of something or other that goes rolling. “Oh?”

“I came to thank you for everything else.”

He grabs the jar of cherries, looks up at Jensen. Somewhere between going down to grab the cherries and looking up, Jensen had stepped forward. Even in the dim pantry light, Jared notices that Jensen’s suit is a deep maroon, and realizes with a start that the suit matches the tie that Genevieve had laid out for him. His expression looks all shades of wary, but his eyes are intensely bright, holding Jared where he kneels on the floor.

“I have never been good at semantics, really, but I wanted thank you for everything you’ve done. Your business plan was foolproof. You saved us money and strife by cutting down the expenses in half. You were brilliant in there. Charming, and brave, and earnest, and smart. No one else could have closed that deal but you. So, thank you for that.”

Jared really can’t say how it happens; he’s a bit unclear on the details. One second he’s crouching there, a dusty jar of maraschino cherries clutched in his hand, heart _pounding_ and the next he’s surging upwards, capturing Jensen’s lips in a single, solid kiss.

The world and all its violence stops, just for that second.

He pulls back, takes in Jensen’s wide eyes, his slack mouth, the rush of blood that roars in his ears.

“You’re welcome,” Jared says, then strides out the door, jar clutched tightly in his hand, leaving Jensen standing in the pantry alone.

“What the fuck took you so long?” Chad snaps, pouring a scotch and soda. “Did you go all the way to the goddamn grocery store? You look out of breath.”

“’M’fine,” Jared mutters, snatching a champagne glass off a nearby waiter’s tray and slamming a mouthful of it back. “Take your fuckin cherries.”

Chad raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment, just pours Jared another glass of champagne for good measure, throws in two maraschino cherries as wordless thanks, and lets Jared take a seat at the bar and nurse his champagne until he’s at least healthily buzzed. He ties the cherry stems into knots with his tongue, smiles wryly at the memory of the last time he’d done it. His mouth feels warm from where he’d kissed Jensen. If he puts too much into what it means, analyzes Jensen’s expressionless face to ascertain whether or not he liked it, Jared knows he will absolutely drive himself crazy. Better to sit here and relish it, enjoy the selfish moment for what it was. He presses his lips to his champagne glass, thinks about how they’d felt against Jensen’s for the single second they’d touched.

“Do you ever think about meeting someone?” Jared asks thoughtfully, at a point where the line at the bar has lessened considerably, and Chad is wiping up spills with a rag.

Chad raises an eyebrow, “What, like getting ass?”

Jared rolls his eyes, but Chad’s quip fades into something more thoughtful, an unspoken intelligence that Jared only sees in the few moments where Chad allows it to be seen. “Yeah, yeah I think about it sometimes. I dunno. In this city, in our business, it’s not exactly safe.”

“That’s a no, then.”

“Give me a minute.” Chad squints more than usual, wipes at an already sparkling glass. “It’s not exactly safe, but if you meet someone? And it’s love? Not fuck-your-brains-out-till-you-pass-out love, but _real_ love, fuckin here’s-lookin-at-you kid shit. That’s magic. That can’t be ignored.”

“How would you know the magic apart from anything else?”

Chad looks at Jared, like Jared should know the answer.

“All these stupid songs from a nearly a century ago, they suddenly make fucking perfect sense. Every goddamn one of ‘em. That’s love, bitch. That’s how you know, when love songs stop seeming so fucking crazy.”

Jared smiles. “You’re surprisingly soft hearted, has anyone ever told you that?”

“Fuck you.” Chad waves him off, distracted by another drink order coming from the front of the bar, and leaving Jared alone with his thoughts.

The party goes on, jazz band in full swing, everyone in the hotel hooting and hollering and tearing up the dance floor. Even the staff seemed to be enjoying themselves. Jared takes himself out of the celebrating equation for a bit, tries to put himself in the contented headspace, trying not to dwell on what had just happened in the liquor storage, and thinking about what Chad had said. He doesn’t watch to see when Jensen re-enters in the room, doesn’t track him through the crowd, doesn’t see if he goes to stand by Gen, or by Chris, if he whispers in their ear, or if he disappears entirely. Jared sips his champagne, wonders at all the feelings he’s carrying around inside him.

It takes a while, but Jensen finds his way back over to him. He’s been sipping champagne too, if the glass in his hand is anything to go by, but he sets it down as soon as he makes it over to the bar, his eyes fixed on Jared. Jared flashes a fleeting smile, still unable to decide whether he’d made a mistake or not.

“Dance with me?” Jensen whispers in Jared’s ear, sending Jared’s stomach into somersaults.

Protests and questions die on his lips, and Jared lets himself be led out onto the dance floor. Jensen tugs Jared’s sleeve until they’re in the middle of the dance floor, their bodies positioned in the same way they were the first time they danced on the pavement. Up on the stage, Danneel snaps her fingers and the band switches into something a little slower, piano climbing a minor scale.

 _“The poets say that all who love are blind_  
But I'm in love and I know what time it is  
The good book says go seek and ye shall find  
Well, I have sought and my what a climb it is”

They don’t move like they did that first time, although Jensen still holds Jared’s hand in the proper form. It is only what Jared can think of as cheek to cheek dancing, Jensen’s five o’ clock shadow brushing against Jared’s jawline, his mouth somewhere close enough to Jared’s ear that he can whisper, “God I love this song” and have it sound as intimate as a caress.

He can’t see what Jensen is feeling, he can only close his eyes and sway back and forth, smiling to himself as Jensen hums along to Danneel’s tune, the sound vibrating deep in his chest. Jared can feel it in his ribs, telegraphed through the places where they touch. Jensen’s shoulder is sturdy under Jared’s palm. Jared can smell the crisp pine of his aftershave. Jared can feel the expanding of Jensen’s chest as he breathes, syncs his own so Jensen doesn’t have to move away to breathe.

_“My poor heart is sentimental, not made of wood  
I got it bad and that ain't good.”_

Chad was right. The song makes sense. Truer words have never been spoken.

“You know,” Jensen says softly, right into Jared’s ear, “You never let me get through my thank yous.”

Jared can’t do much more than hum back in response, full of music and warmth. He’s incapable of anything further, especially as Jensen continues to talk.

“Thank you for taking the job. Thank you for not quitting. Thank you for not letting me fire you. Thank you for keeping a calm head in tight crises. You are truly a most valuable piece to this family. You were and are exactly what we need. What I need.”

Jared’s heart skips a beat.

“You know you don’t have to thank me for everything, right?”

“But I do,” Jensen whispers, “You have no idea. The man I was before you, the way I approached the business, the way I saw it. It’s different. And it has everything to do with you. I owe you so much.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“The sentiment stands.”

Jared’s chest feels like it’s cracking open, and when he opens his mouth, the words tumble out without bidding. “I’d do it over and over again, without a second thought.”

He had always had crushes as a child that felt violent, embarrassing, the kind of thing that led to pining, to long afternoons spent listening to sad music that was probably largely inappropriate for a ten year old. But the warmth that unfurls along his spine right now, this is not that. Crushes were sharp and jagged; pain over the simple fact of not having something he wanted, pain because the feeling was not requited, or went largely unacknowledged.  
  
This is different. Eyes closed and feeling hopelessly raw, Jared knows that more than he knows anything else.  
  
This isn’t pining, maybe because Jared is more practical at this stage in life, maybe because he has a better sense of what exactly he is dealing with. Regardless, there is no room for pining and moping here.

Love, it turns out, felt as tender and sweetly aching as all sonnets and songs had ever described.

It isn’t so much that Jared is broken hearted. Not weak. But he felt his attachment to Jensen like a vice grip in his bones, shaking his establishment, shaking years of isolation and grounding it in the simple presence of Jensen.

Jared didn’t yet know how to lose himself in a person, wise beyond his years though he may be, there had never been anyone he’d connected with on such a level that he wanted to let them in. Guys could kiss him and fuck him and act like they knew him, but Jared was never any good at _this_. He had too many other things to fight for to think about the trivial things.

Yet he’s sort of grateful for what this whole experience of heartache is giving him. It is unrequited and it isn’t losing himself in anything or anyone, but Jared is grateful for the feeling. It makes him feel a little more human, a little more of a man, solid in the foundation that this feeling is his and that no one else can lay claim to it.

There is dignity in that, Jared decides for himself. There is dignity in loving someone despite the knowledge that there’s nothing in it for you. Loving despite the odds.

It is a rare thing, love in a time and place such as this, love in a body like Jared’s. He has been alone for so long.  

It is rare, and yet in this particular moment, everyone around them is glowing and content. It’s difficult forming into words—how happy Jared feels. How at peace. How he’d never seen himself really belonging with one group of people but he seems to have found them. He opens his eyes dreamily, spots Danneel sings soulfully into the mic, hair pooling down her bare back, Sam chuckling at something Chris said, her eyes sparkling. Tom and Mike stand at the door, cracking jokes. Even Chad and Gen look relaxed, standing by the hors d'oeuvres and trading what Jared can only assume is a healthy level of smack talk.

It feels like nothing and everything all at once, the notion that Jared belongs with them.

There are party guests ogling Jared and Jensen, probably for being the only male couple on the floor, for the simple presence of the hotel owner, who so many people know by reputation by now.

“They’re looking at us.” Jared flushes.

“No,” Jensen whispers in his ear, low, “They’re looking at _you_. You and your brilliant, stubborn mind.”

 _“Like a lonely weeping willow lost in the wood_  
The things I tell my pillow no woman should  
I got it bad, and that ain't good.”

Jared feels dizzy, his center of gravity seemingly drawn from where Jensen stands. It hits him again, that sweet ache of affection, like the buzz of champagne.

It’s all a whirl of déjà vu this night, and Jared thinks he might be bleeding with the want. He no longer knows how to operate outside of it, doesn’t know how he ever did.

Everything is hazy and warm and Jensen is so close, the hair at the nape of his neck sweaty and slick under Jared’s fingers. Jared’s never wanted to lose himself in a person before, and now it’s all he can think about.

“I—” Jared pulls back to look Jensen in the eye, but he can’t think past the heart that has heaved into his mouth. The risk is there: in the side-piece Jensen carries, in the code of professionalism they’d sworn themselves to. Why couldn’t he remember it anymore? Why didn’t he care?

They stare each other for a long beat, the room still spinning, the music still playing, even as the song changes and the crowds switch out. They’ve stopped dancing. Jared feels like he’s clinging onto Jensen for dear life.

When Jensen looks down, the professional mask starting to slip on, Jared boldly and stupidly and selfishly touches his jawline, brings his chin back so they’re looking into each other’s eyes, feels his heart break a little more as Jensen’s gaze softens.

“What is it?” Jared asks, barely able to breathe.

“Do you ever think about that night where we—” Jensen ducks his eyes down, shaking his head and grinning. “Where we met in the bar.”

“All the time.” At last Jared heart spills out of his mouth, he can’t stop himself from saying the words, even as Jensen’s eyes widen, as they dart down to look at Jared’s mouth. “I think about it all the goddamn time.”

Jensen feels impossibly close, his hands burning through Jared’s jacket at the small of his waist. The scant few inches between their bodies seems taut, pulling tighter, pulling them closer.

“Need some air,” Jensen rasps, and then he’s darting into the crowd. Jared’s useless but to follow, punch drunk and hungry, can’t even care where Jensen is leading them, just knows he can’t bear to be away from Jensen for one more second. No more of this darting and circling around each other. No more bluffs.

The elevator doors slide open at an agonizing pace. The space where they do not touch feels knit and connected as if by invisible thread, winding inwards with every second. Make it to the hotel room, Jared thinks, get behind closed doors and no risk of being seen, just hold on, just make it up these twenty two floors.

The elevator doors are barely closed before Jensen closes the gap between them, steps right into Jared’s space, settles his hands right onto the small of Jared’s back like they are still dancing. He doesn’t apologize for the intrusion, but rather offers his body, stance open for Jared to touch, place his arms around his neck like they’d never left, and lean forward. They twine around each other like vines. Share each other’s breath. They do not kiss.

This moment, even with the heat simmering between them, feels startlingly delicate, but Jensen does not break his gaze this time, nose brushing Jared’s, his fingers tightening in the material of Jared’s shirt with each floor they rise. If either of them speaks, they’ll ruin it. If either of them moves, they’ll ruin it. The moment remains on a knife’s edge of they can’t, they shouldn’t, and they’re not.

A soft ding, the doors open.

They detangle. Jensen holds the doors open for Jared to step out, makes a show of leisurely taking out his room key, swiping into the bedroom. Jared feels that he could play this game of hide and seek forever, feels that he could die from it any instant.

The door opens, Jared right in step behind, right on Jensen’s heels, keeping close, but not close enough. Jensen sets his keys down, turns the light on, does not look at Jared.

The door closes. Jared’s chest shutters. They stare at each other across the shadows of the darkened room. Jensen turns to the bar cart and pours them both a drink, and still Jared stands close, takes the glass of bourbon when Jensen hands it to him wordlessly. He wonders how long they can keep this up, just trying to share space while he can as he follows Jensen outside the penthouse onto the balcony.

The whole city is before them—their city, Jared realizes, because he somewhere along the line he became just as much of a part of this as Jensen was—neon lights and tourist crowds and that single strip of pavement that holds dozens of hotels and casinos.

Jensen, leaning back against one of the many pillars, levels Jared with a cool stare over the brim of his glass, and downs it in one long swallow.

They don’t speak. They don’t kiss. Jared is tipsy, and he’s goddamn tired of having to hold this bluff. It isn’t a bluff anymore. He doesn’t know that it ever was. He’s all in, has been from the start. But Jared’s shown his hand already. It’s Jensen’s turn now.

Where do they start, when it feels that so much has already been said and done?

Suddenly, Jensen’s lips quirk, and he breaks their staring with a small chuckle, shaking his head and scratching at the back of his neck, a little embarrassed.

“This shouldn’t be so hard.” Jensen chuckles. “I mean, Jesus, we’re both adults, we both know what we want, this should not be so goddamn hard.”

Jared feels his lips tugging into a smile. “I know.”

And then they’re off, airy chuckles that build into deeper, more sincere laughter that shakes loose the tension between them. They’ve held people at gunpoint. They’ve broken the law a dozen times over. That they can’t seem to do _this_ is hysterical.

Jensen, for however long he took to get to this point, finally seems to have got with the program. He crosses the balcony in two strides, reaches for Jared with those gentle coaxing hands, “C’mere.”

There isn’t much time to register anything else before Jensen has closed the gap and kissed him.

He blames the champagne for the laughter that continues to bubble up in him, helpless and right against the press of Jensen’s lips. Jensen cradles his face, thumbs stroking gently over his cheekbones as Jared reigns his happiness in, focuses into kissing back with everything he’s got.

Their eagerness brims over, frothy and clumsy as they clutch at each other, Jared wrapping his arms around and pressing against Jensen’s shoulders, letting Jensen press kiss after kiss after kiss on his lips, warm and sure, not one ounce of hesitation or restraint in either of them. He sighs, softly, against Jensen’s mouth, in a way that can only be described as swooning.

God it feels _good_ , there’s no comparing it to the last time they were like this together; walls down, openly affectionate, on the same page. The sweet surrender of giving in to the current, there’s nothing like it. Jared wants it. Jensen wants it. Jensen wants it so bad he tangles his fingers into Jared’s hair, tilts his chin to continue to press those warm, short kisses to the underside of Jared’s jaw, the long column of his throat, the sensitive skin behind his ear. Jared’s eyes flutter shut, his whole body gone hot all over.

His entire body is standing to attention, and Jensen hasn’t even done anything than simply kissed him.

“We might want to go to the bedroom.” Jensen’s voice is gravelly. He scrapes his teeth against Jared’s earlobe. Jared shudders.

“We might,” Jared parrots back, and then he releases Jensen’s shoulders only to yank Jensen in by his suit tie, kiss him again, wet and open mouthed and wanting.

Jensen groans, smiling into the kiss again. Jared’s never been particularly good at taking things slow. When he wants to have sex he wants to have _sex_ , but this is not a one-night stand. And Jared has wanted this for such a very long time.

Their efforts to make it back indoors keep getting thwarted by the fact that Jared wants his hands all over Jensen, and the fact that Jensen is a phenomenally good kisser. They bump into the French doors, collide rather comically into the fichus as Jensen tries to take control and kiss Jared into stillness and Jared tries to kiss and touch as much as he can. Jared runs his hands over the coiled muscle beneath the starched cotton of Jensen’s shirt, pushes Jensen’s jacket off his shoulders and marvels at the feel of it. Jensen peppers Jared’s face with kisses that are now intentioned, no longer sweet as much as they are sensual. They both can’t stop huffing with breathless laughter, catching each other’s glances and grinning wider in the moonlight.

It’s a playful game of give and take, aided by the slightest buzz and their uncharacteristic giddiness, and it all falls to shit when Jared—in an effort to spin Jensen around and shove him towards the bed—sends them both toppling over and slamming into the carpet.

“Oof,” Jared grunts and Jensen head-butts his shoulder, their ribs and knees knocking together, the air crushing out of their chests in laughter. He thinks of being on the New York New York roller coaster, and it really isn’t much different, the feeling in his stomach. “My bad, sorry.”

They break off into another stupid bout of laughter. Jared props his head on Jensen’s sternum, undone by the look in his eyes.

Jensen grins, full and blinding. Jared’s stomach swoops. “We’re never going to make it to the bed are we?”

He’s laughing again, and Jared kisses him quiet, touches that five o’ clock shadow, wonders what it feels like to hear the rumble of Jensen’s voice underneath his mouth.

The laughter peters out as Jared begins unbuttoning Jensen’s black shirt, trailing his lips down each inch of revealed skin. Jensen’s soft sighs sound like earthquake aftershocks, and Jared chases after all of them. Jensen’s breath catches, he cradles the back of Jared’s head. Down to the last button, Jared doesn’t look up until he’s reached Jensen’s belt buckle, looks up through his eyelashes, and plants another kiss alongside Jensen’s navel.

“I didn’t think I could have this,” Jensen says, thumbing at Jared’s wet bottom lip, reaching up to card through his bangs to better see his face. “I never would have thought I could deserve it.”

“It’s not a matter of having or deserving,” Jared responds, moving forward to hover just over him. “I chose you the first moment we met.”

Jared can’t bear to see the look Jensen’s giving him, the unadulterated reverence laid bare in his eyes. It’s almost a relief when Jensen takes the reigns again, fisting his hands in Jared’s hair and pulling him down on top of him, grinding their hips together and licking up into Jared’s mouth, tasting of bourbon and maraschino cherries. They roll over and Jared lets his hands roam over freckly, paler skin than his, the taut muscle and skin of his abs, presses his palms to feel the way the muscles flex as Jensen bends over him, kisses him breathless.

It feels like they go hours just like that, kissing messily, letting hands wander, bodies press. Somewhere in the mix Jared lost his own jacket, shirt and tie. Somewhere in the mix Jensen lost his pants, and Jared toed off his shoes and socks. It is a slow and heady process of undoing each other, punctuated by heated mouths and soft assenting moans. It’s when the underwear comes off and their cocks slide together, hips stuttering, that Jared suddenly realizes the insistent urge of his arousal, how badly he wants Jensen inside of him.

“Do you have—”

Jensen’s up and across the room in seconds, jerking open the side table drawer and dashing back over to Jared, who simply lies sprawled and dazed on the floor, naked as the day he was born. The sight of Jensen naked and sprinting sends Jared cackling despite himself, but Jensen doesn’t bother kissing Jared quiet again, just wraps a firm hand around his cock and begins to stroke at a leisurely pace, shutting him up just as effectively.

“Oh.” Jared mouth falls open of its own accord, his body bends against the sensation of Jensen’s calluses against the velvety head, his thumb making a mess of the pre-come at the tip.

Jensen does just that for a bit, wringing any retorts out of Jared by jerking him off into stunned silence, head cocked to the side like he hasn’t quite decided what else he wants to do with Jared. Jared loses track of Jensen’s movements, only able to focus on the sensation, and when Jensen slides an experimental finger inside him, it startles him all over again, the slick traction of the lube, the pleasant intrusion of it.

Despite the rushed pretense of the first time they did this, it turns out that not only is Jensen an infuriating tease, but he also seems to have a specific fondness for foreplay that seems to be connected to driving Jared to the edge and back, again and again. When Jensen’s fingers—because one had torturously become two inside of Jared, a blur of stretch and slide that only felt natural in progression, that Jared could only welcome with an enthusiastic moan—crook inside of Jared and hit that sweet spot, Jared slaps his hands on the carpet and can’t help the throaty moan he releases. Jensen looks positively enthralled at the sound, makes the same tilting motion and curls his fingers inside Jared just so, grinning outright when Jared begins panting, hips canting of their own accord to meet Jensen’s hand. Two fingers become three, and Jared is going to _come so fucking hard_ until Jensen pulls out, leaving the empty space between Jared’s legs feeling indiscernibly wrong in the fullness it had become acclimated to.

“Goddammit—” Jared swears, impatient and frustrated to hell.

“Patience,” Jensen mutters, with all the cool control of someone who is not naked and rolling a condom onto his perfectly erect and leaking cock. It annoys Jared immeasurably, that control. It turns him on so fucking much.

“Fuck that,” Jared snarls, and once again rolls them over, sending Jensen flat on his back, looking a little dazed as to how he got there. Jared sincerely hopes Jensen catches up with the program quick enough, because he doesn’t do patience when it comes to the bedroom, even when it’s intimate. He needs it fast and now his body is too keyed up to handle anything else. Sex has always felt like the period at the end of the sentence, quick and to the point, no bullshit. It’s worked so far, with previous partners.

But of course, Jensen is not a previous partner. Jensen is a whole other breed entirely.

He resolves himself to try slow, because it’s important, what’s about to happen here. This is no longer the one night stand it started as all those months ago.

He balances himself on Jensen’s chest, one possessive hand splayed on Jensen’s sternum, as he sinks down, letting Jensen fill him to the hilt. Slow, he thinks, tipping his head back, releasing a soft sigh of affirmation. _Slow._ There it is, that fullness right where Jared needed it most. He closes his eyes and begins to ride in earnest when he feels Jensen’s hands settling low on his hips, thumbs stroking at the groove of his hipbone.

That halts him, and he looks down again to see Jensen, wild eyed and flushed, beneath him.

“Slower,” Jensen urges, and lifts to meet Jared’s mouth, kisses at the corner, mouths at Jared’s jaw, bites and tugs at his earlobe.

“Slower?” Jared gasps back, as if he’s trying to remember the very definition of the word.

He feels like he could probably persuade Jensen to see his side of things by simply fucking him into agreement, if he really put his back into it. But Jensen’s still holding onto Jared, hands traveling the length of his waist, the expanse of his ribcage with each shallow breath, expression almost awed. The King of Las Vegas, with hands that hold pretty much all the power, yet handle Jared with every ounce of care.

“Slower.” Jensen nods back, touching at the risen color of Jared’s cheeks for a brief second.

Slower. Jared can at least give it his best effort. He settles back on Jensen’s cock, rocks his hips in a more sinuous and circular motion, rather than slamming them down in a quick slide. A rather comical sound falls from his mouth as a newer friction lights his body up from the inside out, racing up his spine like a current. He can actively _feel_ Jensen inside of him, and while this is not exactly Jared’s first time in the saddle, it’s the first time he’s felt the gravity of the moment, the stark reality of it.

It is, quite suddenly, the most vulnerable Jared’s ever felt in his life, the sensation like being aired out to dry, unsure how he feels about it as a whole.

Slower.

He rolls his hips again, entire body following the motion, and Jensen’s eyelashes flutter shut for the briefest of seconds, his head tipping back as he growls low in his throat. Jared’s fingers dig in where they hold him up on Jensen’s chest when Jensen’s cock once again hits at just the right angle inside of him.

Jensen’s watching him again, drinking in the sight of him, and Jared suddenly gets why Jensen has openly admitted to not sleeping around often. If _this_ is how he fucks, all adoring touches and earnest glances, Jared wouldn’t have sex often either. The level of intimacy feels terrifying, exhilarating, and so fucking hot, an overload on all senses.

It feels juvenile to admit that he’d never expected sex could feel like this. Slow sex had always sounded like the vanilla routine of middle aged married couples who leave the lights off, rather than a sensation so encompassing that his entire body felt like a fuse burning shorter and shorter, leading straight to detonation.

“God _fuck_ ,” Jared moans, can’t help it, grips Jensen a little tighter and rocks at that same agonizing pace. Sweat gathers from exertion, his muscles sing with the burn of it, but he doesn’t dare speed up. “Jensen—”

The use of his name unleashes something in Jensen that Jared hadn’t even realized was being held back. Jensen’s hips make an aborted thrust upwards that hits Jared’s prostate again, the two of them shuddering, Jared falling forward a bit onto Jensen’s chest. It hadn’t occurred to Jared, in all of this, that the pace of their bodies together is just as torturous to Jensen as it is to him. That Jensen is just as wrecked by Jared as Jared is by him.

Jared leans forward, planting his hands on the floor on either side of Jensen’s head, rolling his hips again and again, and seeking Jensen’s mouth. Jensen meets him with trembling enthusiasm, tangles his hands in Jared’s hair, lips and teeth and tongue making Jared positively keen with pleasure, his hips jerking and losing their rhythm as slow grows to a greater crescendo, legato bleeding into staccato, the fuse between them getting shorter.

“Jensen,” Jared sighs into his mouth, can’t seem to shut up. “ _Jensen_.”

Jensen, in all his intensity, doesn’t seem capable of forming words. He snarls, bites at Jared’s neck again, kisses it after the fact, his hips now meeting Jared’s in earnest, cock sliding in and out of Jared at a slightly quicker speed.

The third litany of his name falling from Jared’s mouth sends Jensen springing into action, and he flips the two of them over again, still buried inside as he maneuvers Jared onto his back, pushes his knees back to his chest and begins to pick up the pace. Even then it’s still so slow, so deliciously and agonizingly slow.

If Jared thought being in control of the pace was a difficult thing, it’s got nothing on letting Jensen set the pace. Jensen definitely has the physical prowess to fuck Jared hard, but he’s too busy fucking Jared _deep_ , long strokes that force Jared’s breath out of his lungs, stars bursting beneath eyes screwed tight shut against the pleasure sparking along his nerves.

Jared lends his encouragement in whispering Jensen’s name over and over breathlessly, just for the two of them to hear, hands gripping tight enough to bruise Jensen’s biceps. His own cock slaps against his stomach, dripping with pre-come, flushed and aching. He tries to see Jensen’s face, tries to keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds, but the sight of Jensen’s face, slack jawed and sweating, mouth flushed pink and bruised looking, it’s too much of a visual to handle. He allows it in doses, but when they finally manage to catch each other’s eyes, it becomes too much altogether. Jensen’s thrusts automatically speed up and Jared _mewls_ , the sound chasing out of his chest before he can stop it.

It’s a never-ending cycle, and they feed off each other’s arousal, each other’s noises and gestures. They’re too in motion to kiss, but Jensen still stays close, exchanging hard gasps, lips occasionally brushing. Jared can no longer tell who’s working harder, Jensen with his downward thrusts, or Jared with his upwards rolls, angling his hips to every move Jensen makes, clenching around Jensen and obscenely moaning each time he hits that one spot.

It doesn’t end slower, but slower had brought them to a burn that was inescapable, heat and friction that made any gesture a turn on, the connection between them synched and locked.

Jared doesn’t even need a hand on him to finish it off. It builds and builds until boiling point, until the fuse finally burns down to the quick, and the entire world whites out in an explosion of space and sound. Jensen mouths at Jared’s neck for half a second, kisses under his jaw just once, and Jared comes, head slamming back to the floor, body bending like a livewire, mouth open in a silent cry of senseless pleasure.

Jensen’s hips stutter at the exact same time and he freezes, deep inside Jared, choking around growls against Jared’s cheek, breath hot and jagged. They cling to each other even as they come apart, Jared’s come coating both of their stomachs, their sweat mingling on their skin. Jensen’s still mouthing kisses at Jared’s jaw and Jared strokes over Jensen’s lax biceps, tugs on them so Jensen comes down and lets their chests press tight together, everything oversensitive and static electric with orgasm.

They lie like that for a while, slipping down from climax into the sated state of afterglow. Jensen rolls over off of Jared, and Jared tries to ignore the wrongness of Jensen not inside him for the second time, sure he’s going to be plenty sore come morning, not really caring. Jared kisses Jensen the way he’s wanted to probably since that first night together, a little messy and a little possessive, to cover up the ache in his chest whenever he looks at Jensen. Like it’s punishment for being so sweet to Jared during the act. Jensen, to his credit, kisses back with as much enthusiasm, returns every ounce of Jared’s selfishness with his own.

It feels like the kiss they’d meant to have at the very beginning of this whole tangled mess of a thing. The kiss of two people who are more than aware of how good things so rarely last.

When Jared’s pulse has returned from a gallop and Jensen has disposed of the condom, he lays back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, feeling like his body had been incised right down the middle, every inch of his him exposed, but not in an unpleasant way. He’s exhausted in the best way, used in the best way, smelly and sweaty and disgusting, in the best way. Jensen, wordlessly, with coaxing kisses and an iron grip, drags Jared to his feet and over to the bed, wiping him clean before he crashes to the mattress, following not long after.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Jared yawns, “But if crime doesn’t work out for you, sex work may be your true natural talent.”

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Jensen responds, grumbling when Jared hitches a leg around him and pulls him closer.

“Also, for the record. Round two? So much better than round one.”

“Happy to make up for it.”

It’s a little scary, the notion that Jared could absolutely get used to this, pillow talk and all the stuff that came before. He pillows his arm under his head, turns his side to face Jensen completely, feeling sleep shuttering over him.

“Don’t disappear before breakfast this time, okay?”

Jensen pauses, eyes softening. He leans forward and kisses Jared’s forehead, brushing his sweaty bangs back.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

\--

It’s dawn when the alarm goes off. Jared swats his hand out to shut it off, and then realizes with a start that it’s not his alarm. He turns back over to find Jensen already blinking blearily awake, remembers where he is and what had transpired with sudden clarity, and little regret.

Jared curls a little into the pillow, shyer than he should be, given all that’s happened. “Your alarm went off.”

“So I noticed.”

“Long day ahead?”

“Too long.”

They stare at each other, Jensen breaking the moment only to let his eyes wander, heaving an inward sigh that Jared can feel against him. They’re still very close and still very naked.

This, Jared notes with a sense of satisfaction, was not a one-night stand.

The silence stretches on, and Jared’s about to remark on it when he realizes that Jensen’s still looking his fill, a sleepy and contented smile on his face.

“You’re mooning,” Jared observes with a grin, and Jensen groans, throws a hand over his eyes and flops onto his back.

“I am _not_.”

“Look, it’s not your fault I have a twink build and a six figure ass. I should work corners.” Jared stretches out on the bed, the sheets falling around the lowest juncture of his hips, well aware that he is a tease and loving every second of it. “I understand completely; I’m irresistibly hot.”

“I was going to say lovely,” Jensen says rather frankly, eyeing Jared wryly. “But I suppose that’ll do.”

Now it’s Jared’s turn to flush all the way down to his toes. Jensen grins something lecherous.

“Gotcha.” He smiles, and Jared blushes even harder and turns away to hide it, but Jensen catches his cheek in the palm of his hand, thumbing at the dimple of the smile Jared’s trying to suppress. “See?” He tilts his head curiously. “Lovely.”

“Ridiculous.” Jared rolls his eyes, but Jensen only looks at the pink in Jared’s cheeks, his eyes darkening a bit, the air between them thickening, pulling taut. It doesn’t take much of a suggestive gesture, Jared only tips his chin up and Jensen meets him open mouthed in a kiss that suggests the slow and languorous movement of a new day, sprinkled with the remnants of last night’s passion. All too easily, they get a bit carried away.

“You have a meeting—” Jared sighs in protest, even though he’s already groping madly for the side table drawer. Jensen shakes his head, already ahead of the curve, and kisses Jared quiet even as he uncaps the bottle of lube with a quiet _snick._

He swings Jared’s knee over him so Jared’s atop of him again, pushes inside of him experimentally with a finger. There’s a burn; it’s been hours since the first round, but Jared only shudders into it, wanting, settles his hands on the headboard.

“You were saying something about a meeting?” Jared can _hear_ the smile in his rough voice, the bastard, even with his eyes closed.

It’s all too easy to get caught up in the moment. Jared throws his head back, biting his lip on a sigh.

“You shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

“Let ‘em wait,” Jensen says, and Jared kisses the words from him, body reawakened and no longer as sleepy as before.

\--

Jensen goes to his meeting some considerable time later, with explicit instructions for Jared to do nothing but call in sick to work and remain naked and bed until he gets up. Jared, ever the rule breaker, gets up and stretches his stiff limbs, finally showers the mess of sweat and dried come off himself. His skin somehow feels different, although he can’t quite put his finger on how, just knows it does.

He eats and lolls about in bed for as long as he can, but eventually he breaks and heads out of the hotel for the day. Chris is seated outside the door reading, and when Jared exits he rises wordlessly, but there’s a curve to the corner of his mouth that could be a suppressed smile. Jared looks down at the button down shirt that is so obviously Jensen’s, loose around the shoulders, and the jeans.

“Can it.” Jared glares, and Chris chuckles to himself, presses the button for the lift.

“Moi? I didn’t say a thing.”

“Yeah but you were thinking it,” Jared snaps, but even so he’s smiling. He walks out of the hotel on cloud nine, a bounce in his step. He whistles along to the radio all the way to the Rehab Center, thinking fondly on last night, on this morning, on every last detail of Jensen’s face when Jared said ‘I chose you’.

It’s stupidly romantic and not like Jared at all. It feels good anyway.

Chris sits in the car with his crossword as always, and Jared walks into the Treatment Center, signs himself in at the desk, greets Loretta same as always.

“How’s she feeling today, Lo?”

“Oh, alright, alright,” Loretta answers, avoiding Jensen’s eyes. “She came to church last Sunday. She even sang some of the hymns.”

She’s acting funny, not her usual cheery self, but Jared figures that she’s got other stuff on her mind, doesn’t want to keep darting her with questions when he can just go and see for himself. Maybe today will be the day when his mom finally comes out to see him, because it seems already off to such a great start. He walks through into the visitor’s room, beelines for his favorite spot by the window.

There is a man sitting in Jared’s usual spot. Close crew cut, black suit, very official looking, the kind of look Jensen would admire. Its visiting hours, but this guy’s not a regular. He’s either got a relative who’s fresh off the check-in or this is first time visiting after a long time.

Figuring the stranger wouldn’t appreciate someone sitting across from him that wasn’t family, Jared changes course to go find another seat at one of the many bridge tables.

“Mr. Padalecki.”

Jared freezes. His stomach clenches with dread. He didn’t think to strap a gun on himself. Chris was all the way across the parking lot. But there was no way that anyone had been able to track Jared here, or why he would be so hunted. The tiff between Pellegrino and Jensen had been cleared, bygones were bygones. He runs the man’s face through all his mental images of any and all gang members he’s met. He doesn’t recognize anything about this man. Nothing about him felt familiar, and yet everything in Jared was screaming to make the decision between fight or flight.

Which begs the question: just who the fuck had come to kill Jared?

Jared turns heel, puts on his most genial smile, turns up the wide and innocent eyes. The man is still sitting.

“Pardon me, but I think you’re mistaken.”

“Mr. Jared Tristan Padalecki, resident of 1450 W. Desert Flower Road, apartment number 3. At least, you were a resident.” The man rises, offering a hand in greeting. “From how I hear it, you’ve recently upgraded your living situation.”

The man’s eyes are ice blue, light brown hair and kind smile of a gentleman, but he is every bit as large and intimidating as Jensen, or any other gang member Jared has met. Jared, even given his considerable size, probably couldn’t take the guy in a fight. He curses himself for not having taken up self-defense on top of weapons training all those years ago.

“It’s a shame,” the stranger says, “That you weren’t able to bring your mother with you. But then, I guess she’s always been a bit of a burden to you.”

“If you so much as touch her—” Jared spits, black rage coiling and ready to strike.

“Relax.” The man holds his hands up in surrender, steps back from Jared slowly, “I didn’t mean to ambush you, and I’m sure you have a lot of questions. We were forced to arrange the meeting this way, it was the only way we could get you alone. Neither you or your mother are in danger from us, I swear.”

“And what do you swear by?”

“The powers invested in me by the U.S. Government, last time I checked,” The stranger replies smoothly. “Agent Stephen Amell, FBI. Have a seat, Mr. Padalecki, please.” It’s not a request, not really, and Jared knows it.

Caught between a rock and a hard place. Jared’s torn between the danger of what could happen every second he stays longer, and the curiosity of knowing what exactly the FBI wants from him, how much they could possibly know. It’s not that Jared outwardly hates law enforcement, rather that he’s seen enough bad cases to be wary. When a cop, or an agent, wants to talk to you, it’s never anything good.

He sits. Agent Stephen Amell smiles.

“I appreciate your cooperation.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Jared says, voice saccharine sweet, “I’m waiting for my ride. As soon as they’re here, this conversation is over.”

Amell tuts. “You see, I’d be inclined to believe that, except for how Mr. Kane hasn’t moved out of the parking lot. Hasn’t even stepped out of the car or started the engine.”

Jared, knowing a trap when he sees one, keeps his mouth shut tight, eyebrows raised, confirming and denying nothing. Agent Amell shakes his head, like Jared just told some sort of inside joke, then pushes forward a file.

Jared doesn’t reach for it. “What is this?”

“Proof that we’ve been following you,” Stephen answers, opening the file for him. He spreads glossy photos across the surface of the table, angling them towards Jared. “Proof that your every movement since entering into business with Jensen Ackles has been tracked, monitored. Proof that we know exactly who your boss is, and we’ve got enough evidence on your ass to book you in jail for the rest of your life.”

The photos are limited, but they very simply draw the simple tie of relationship. Photos of Jensen and Jared walking out of Jeff Morgan’s hotel. Jensen and Jared at the Bellagio Fountains. Jensen and Jared on a balcony of the Penthouse Suite, standing close and sipping bourbon. The photos are from hundreds of yards away and extremely blurry, but they tell the story clear enough.

Jared sets them back down on the table, face expressionless, heart pounding. “I don’t see what that has to do with going to jail. Being gay may have been illegal once upon a time, Agent Amell, but we’re in the year 2016. I think you’ll find that times have changed.”

Amell smiles again, and Jared marks the tightness around his eyes, how the smile doesn’t quite reach. “You are close with your boss.”

“As you and your paparazzi have been able to ascertain, yes.”

“You are close with all your colleagues.”

“They are like family, yes.”

“You are aware of how they conduct their business, both under the table and over it?”

Jared stills, assessing. “Is there a point to this banal conversation or is it just the beat around the bush edition of twenty questions?”

He feels an almost vicious surge of satisfaction when Amell’s politeness falters for a second. If there’s anything he’s gifted at, it’s getting under a person’s skin out of sheer stubbornness.

“Okay then.” Amell leans forward on the table, elbows on the edge, hands clasped, peering at Jared. “Not much gets by you. You want me to get to the point? Alright. Over the last two years the amount of drugs being smuggled into the city has increased exponentially. Mob activity has never been higher. Organized crime is the new black, as they say. And all of this seems directly correlated with your boyfriend’s rise to power.”

Jared concentrates very minutely on keeping his entire body still and expressionless.

“We tried to infiltrate the Ackles Mob on multiple occasions. First with converting criminals to go undercover. They got selfish, and played both sides, and eventually they were caught and killed. Secondly, we tried surveillance, tailing every member of that ‘family’ as you call it, and we got nothing. Our main PI was caught on a stakeout one night, and killed. We’ve tried converting the other gangs to rat, but they won’t do it either. We even sent in our own Agent Barrowman, undercover as their newest financial consultant to leak intel. He had everything, even a legitimate accounting degree from MIT. He made it three months into the job and they hadn’t so much as told him a single goddamn thing about the crime. When he tried to dig it up, they shot him in cold blood. That ‘distributor’ that they killed off a few months back? Another of our informants, crooked as hell and wanting a cut of the pot, but still ours. Two years,” Amell holds up fingers, “Two years we’ve been trying to catch this bastard, get someone in there to gain their trust, to get close to the boss, to unlock the mob. Two years of tireless effort, and you do it in a month. How does that happen? How does a high school dropout, son of a lifelong junkie, pull that off?”

“What can I say,” Jared grits out, “I don’t have much, but I got my mother’s charm.”

“You got me there.” Amell nods. “Whatever you’ve got, it’s enough to charm you into the hearts of one of the FBI’s most wanted crime syndicates. Whatever you’ve got, it’s something that the FBI is interested in.”

“If you’re offering me a job, you’re going to need to give me time to hand in my two weeks notice.”

“Don’t think of it as a job, think of it more as… freelance.”

Around them, families are talking, and laughing, and crying. Jared had thought, that just this once, this particular Thursday might not be as bad as all of the rest. Maybe even enjoyable.

He should have known.

Jared sits back in his seat, fighting to keep his face neutral. “You’ve dropped back into beating around the bush again, Agent. Remind me exactly why we’re having this pow-wow?”

“We want you to help us capture the Ackles Mob. Not just Jensen Ackles, but the whole lot of them. Anyone who’s ever helped a single shipment make it past the States borders, anyone who’s ever pulled the trigger or cocked the fist in his name.”

“What’s to stop you from including me in that roundup?”

“You help us catch Ackles and his cronies, you’ll get off scot-free. Think of it as good behavior points. We’ll pay you handsomely.”

“I get paid enough already.”

Stephen slides another piece of paper from the file across the table. “I think you’ll find our counter offer to be a lot more tempting.”

Jared lifts edge of the piece of paper, just so he can barely see the amount of zeroes, and swallows hard. Truth be told, the money is hardly a temptation. But where his savings from The Fitzgerald could get him across the country, his mom’s rehab paid in full, this kind of money could get him anywhere he wanted, and afford him an education too.

“You would have the full protection and support of the FBI with you. We can give you a tracking device, an alert that tells us if you’ve been found out, so we can come and pull you out before something bad happens. We can cover your mother’s rehab expenses. We can put you into Witness Protection once it’s done with. You can have a whole new life.”

“Yeah,” Jared says in a low voice, “I just have to destroy other people’s.”

“They’re criminals, Padalecki. The lowest form of people there is.”

Jared stares at his hands, at the grainy photographs of himself and Jensen, at the blank piece of paper with the long line of zeroes.

“What if I say no?”

“You’re welcome to. But when this empire falls—and it will fall, you will go burning down with it. You will not be absolved of the crimes you took part in. And when you are behind bars without a cent to your cowardly name, who will pay for mommy’s rehab then?”

His face feels hot, a headache blossoms behind his brow. It was a choice to make, but then not much of a choice at all. It’s not fair. But then, when had Jared’s life ever been? That had always been his mantra, survive no matter the costs. Keep mom out of trouble, and do whatever he had to be okay. It had never been his intent to stay in this job, but the events of the past week—hell even the past twenty-four hours—seemed to change everything.

Agent Stephen Amell may be a total fucking asshole, but Jared is starting to get a niggling feeling that he’s right. Jensen’s empire can’t last forever; the fact that Amell was able to corner him here at all meant the first stone had already fallen.

The cloud nine Jared has been floating on bursts at the notion.

Jared wants to stay. Jared wants to be with Jensen, with Gen, with the whole lot of them. But Jared, selfishly, still wants to live. From day one of adulthood he’d been breaking his back trying to make ends meet. He was meant for more than a life sentence in prison before he’d even turned thirty. He deserved more.

But in leaving, Jared would be throwing all of them to the wolves. He recognizes the spark of obsession in Amell’s eyes. Jared’s family, they would suffer, all of them.

The question was, did Jared want to suffer with them? Did he want his mom to suffer, when she was entirely innocent here?

Jared doesn’t know. But visiting hours can’t last forever, and Agent Amell doesn’t look like the kind of man who has any patience whatsoever.

“Why are you doing this?” Jared says hoarsely, deflating. “I’m not an FBI Agent, fuck, I’m not even a college graduate or a policeman. I know next to nothing about taking Intel. If you couldn’t find any evidence, what the fuck makes you think I can do any better?”

“You’re right. You are nobody to this world compared to the big guns; you have no credentials that make you fearsome, or threatening. But maybe that’s why Jensen Ackles found you to be so trustworthy. You’re smart, you’re uninfluenced. You had no reason to suspect that the world would offer you anything better than what cards life had dealt you.”

Jared stares at the photo from last night, marks the obvious smile on Jensen’s face, even in the dark. He can track the moment perfectly, right up to the point where Jensen had started laughing, all because he’d wanted to sleep with Jared and suddenly had no idea how to go about it. He stares at the photo, and then he stares at the reception room around them, the warm blue wallpaper, the relaxing smell of spearmint on the air, a place that had taken care of his mom when Jared couldn’t.

He raises his head, jaw set. “Tell me what I have to do.”

Agent Amell grins like a wolf.

The operation, as he explains to Jared over the next hour, is relatively straightforward. All Jared has to do is deliver information every other Thursday, track the shipments, copy emails, any damning evidence that can be used in a court of law. Spill a few secrets here and there. Although Jared protests not being all that involve with the actual shipment side of things, Amell seems to know the kind of pull Jared has with Jensen, encourages him to use that influence to get closer to the business. Jared knows Amell is right, if he has anything, it’s Jensen’s unwavering trust, among other things.

He will meet with Stephen at visiting hours every other Thursday, because it’s about the only place in the city where Jared’s bodyguard won’t follow. He is handed an emergency pager and a tracking device should things go amiss. He is given a list of specific people to get information on if he can. Almost all of them are Jared’s friends. He thinks, in a mantra that screams, that he’s doing this for himself, for his mom. But for the thousandth Thursday in a row, mom doesn’t come out to see Jared, and Jared wonders if happiness is ever an attainable thing. Or, for some people, if it exists to be an unreachable goal.

Visiting hours are drawing to a close. Agent Amell rises, holding a hand out for a second time. Jared shakes it, keeps his grip firm, the way he always does, forces his hands not to shake until Amell has left the room.

“You’re doing your country a service, Padalecki.” Amell nods. “Good things come to those who serve.”

He walks right out into broad daylight. Jared sets his trembling hands on the table, leans his head onto the cool surface of the wood.

 _What have I done?_ He thinks, pulling himself together piece by piece, composing his face into a mask that looks just as cheery as the one he’d had when he walked in.

_What on earth have I done?_


	7. Chapter 7

Jared takes his time, stays out until sundown, has Chris drive him to the farmer’s market, to the nearest Total Wine, gets a nice bottle of Merlot. He gets a few texts from Jensen, apologies about the meeting going really late, promises to make it up to Jared. He’s remarkable how easy he’s able to get into it: the lying. He tells Jensen to take his time and that he’ll have a special dinner waiting for him.

They eat homemade mac and cheese out of mugs in bed, the sheets pooled around their waists, because after Jensen got home he didn’t seem to be hungry for food in the least. They’d had a short but enthusiastic round of sex, actually made it into the bed this time after stripping one another all along the length of the penthouse. Jensen had pinned Jared’s hands to the pillow above his head, ground their hips slow and lazy, just like the first time, only with Jensen whispering the filthiest babble into Jared’s ear. Jared had seemed to find, between last night and now, the enjoyment in taking it slow, and Jensen exacted the definition of the very word in every possible way, lighting up Jared’s nerves with arousal until he was nearly incoherent with it.

It’s a brief and thankless distraction, but as soon as it’s over Jared feels the residual guilt creeping around in the back of his skull, the tally marks of where he’s keeping track of exactly how many lies he’s told.

And Jensen, handsome and wholly unaware, munches on the macaroni like it’s the best meal he’s ever had, smiling at Jared with a mouthful of cheese and noodle. He looks mussed and content. Jared feels guilty just for being lucky enough to witness it.

“You know,” Jensen says, hiking the sheets up, “I think you’re corrupting me. I definitely shirked more responsibilities today than I should have. You’re a bad influence.”

“One of us has to be.” Jared sighs. “You work too hard.”

“Look who’s talking.”

It feels like the senseless routine of hi-honey-how-was-your-day that all normal couples have. They haven’t even discussed it, really, and Jared doesn’t know that they need to. He‘s wearing Jensen’s discarded work shirt and Jensen is eating from his Captain America mug and somehow they’ve gone from boss and employee to this.

Though if Jared’s being honest with himself, this had always been a part of the equation, and never just the sum.

“Thank you.” Jensen balances on his palms, leans forward across the bedspread. “I know; I’ve said it before. I’ll keep saying it until my face turns blue. Thank you.”

Jensen kisses Jared softly, and Jared thinks _I don’t deserve this_ , along with a dozen other self-hatred pronouncements to match. This feels _wrong_ , this deception that Jared is about to embark on. It feels like a deal made with the devil, except for the fact that the FBI is supposed to be the good guys. It’s the man sitting in front of him, cupping Jared’s jaw so gentle, that’s supposed to be the devil. In many ways, he already is.

Jared’s life has always been a little big grey, a little too School of Hard Knocks, his moralities defined a little off kilter from everyone else. He has always been able to suss out good from bad, even when it needed to be picked apart. But this feels impossible. It’s not, in theory. Whatever Agent Amell and the FBI know about his role in this operation, it’s likely a huge underestimate. Jared has practically had unrestricted access and trust from the beginning. Betraying Jensen, on a fundamental level, is almost too easy.

A piece of cake, what they are asking him to do, a piece of cake to trick and finagle the biggest mob boss in the tristate area.

The only truly impossible part of all of this seemed to be the fact of this being the man that Jared has helplessly fallen in love with.

He doesn’t have time for guilt. He doesn’t have time for regrets, or worrying about what’s to come. He made the deal. He only gets to be selfish in this situation, Jared has never been able to afford anything else. Jensen would surely do the same in his position. Surely he would be just as selfish.

Jensen pulls away, smiling contentedly, and Jared is not so sure he would.

“At the end of the day, knowing you would be here when I got back is the only thing that kept me going throughout the meeting.”

“Who’d have thought you were so easy to please,” Jared says airily, forcing away the dread in his stomach.

“Easy to please, yes.” Jensen leans close again, the sheets now falling entirely away from him as he crawls over to Jared, closing all distances between them. “But damn near insatiable, to my credit.”

\--

The thing about working with the mob for so long and wanting nothing to do with it, is that it’s almost too easy for Jared to sneak behind Jensen’s back and get what he needs when it comes down to it. His revulsion with crime had turned out to be the perfect guise from day one. Not only did everyone believe that Jared was trust worthy, but he was given free reign and a clearance that probably would have been any FBI agents wet dream.

Amell had been right. Jared is the perfect candidate for this mission.

He starts with the accounts. On a night where Jensen’s running late from a business meeting (he sends an apology text with a bunch of ridiculous emojis that make Jared laugh, even as his heart clenches), Jared makes his move. Just as he’s covered up all the errors where accounts don’t match up and anonymous guests stay at the hotel without paying, Jared undoes the work just as easily.

There’s likely no risk in using the office scanners to make copies of the documents, but Jared doesn’t push it. He tucks the folder under his arm, not even glancing to see if the security cameras might be on; they always are.

The bathroom feels a hundred miles away but he gets there, safe from camera eyes, and balances the books on the bathroom sink, pulls out his phone. He takes pictures with his personal phone and hides the photos in a disguised folder. He takes photos of the fake books, and then the real books that only Gen and Jensen see. It’s an arduous process and Jared is sweating buckets by the time he finishes, terrified of someone walking in the door and catching him. But it’s a Saturday night and most everyone has gone home, or with Jensen. He’s got time. He’s got their trust.

Still, the cameras pick up everything. Jared allows himself only ten minutes in the bathroom stall before he exits, knowing any more time spent in there might look suspicious. He returns the files, and heads back up to the penthouse without a second of hesitation. Jensen had left him a key.

He’ll get the photos to Amell on Thursday. It’ll at least be enough to get the gang for fraud charges.

Like he said, almost too easy.

In the end, Jensen wasn’t exaggerating, the meeting goes till ten o’ clock at night and Jared eats alone, his only company the nightly news and the bottle of wine. It only takes a few glasses before Jared’s thoughts begin to unravel, as worrying about Jensen catching him turns into missing Jensen turns into thinking about Jensen in general.

Ice Cold Ackles, Chad had called him. _No one fucks the Boss_ , was one of the first things that was said to Jared upon arriving at the hotel, entering this hell.

Jared, truthfully, doesn’t know what other people see when they look at Jensen Ackles, mafia boss. He supposes they see a killer, a stone cold business man who’s not about to let anybody fuck with his city.

Maybe Jared’s just blind, or maybe Jared doesn’t see it because he got to meet the real Jensen first.

But why stay? The thought stabs at Jared’s head, making it throb. Why stay when the cold, calculating Mr. Ackles was pretty much the only Ackles that ever showed his face?

The answer came trudging through the door, posture still tall, but the movements stiff with what Jared can only assume is exhaustion.

In the dim light spilling out from the TV, which Jared deftly mutes, Jensen looks the utter definition of professional, the only tell being the hard edge of his eyes, not dulled so much as smoothed over, as a rock at the bottom of a river bed, worn down. Glassy with fatigue.

Jared, for the effort of not startling him, doesn’t get up, doesn’t make a ceremony of it.

It’s moments like these that Jared finally realizes why he’s really staying. Jensen Ackles is a brilliant businessman; charming, honest, without any bullshit or false sentimentality. Violent though this world may be, Jared admires that Jensen never resorts to it unless he has to.

But it’s moment like this, where the jacket and the gloves are removed, where the mask of the businessman is stripped away and the charm is left at the door that Jared finds himself living for.

Jensen walks over to the couch where Jared sits, the shadows stretching long on his face, making him look gaunt and sallow in the dim light of the room. He settles, and Jared lifts his legs and places them in Jensen’s lap like they’d been there all along. There’s plenty of space on the couch for there to be distance between them, but Jared keeps close despite it.

“Hi,” Jared says softly.

Jensen says nothing, gaze a thousand miles away, hands absentmindedly taking up the task of settling on and rubbing warmth into Jared’s bare ankles. He doesn’t even seem aware that he’s doing it.

“How’d it go?” Jared asks.

“Fine,” Jensen says, not budging. “Fine,” again, the unmistakable tension knitting even further in his shoulders.

Before he can stop himself, Jared’s reaching over to scratch his fingers through Jensen’s short hair, dragging nails against the back of his scalp. Jensen leans against the touch, hell, even pushes into it, face suddenly slack with exhaustion and something almost… needy, something Jared’s not sure he wants to decipher quite yet; what this moment is, what it’s slowly becoming.

“You should have Gen and cancel all your appointments tomorrow,” Jared says slowly, hitting a particular spot at the crown of Jensen’s head. “You need a break.”

It’s an attest to Jensen’s exhaustion that he doesn’t even protest, just lets his head drop closer towards Jared and hums in assent.

They’re like that for a while, Jared’s soft scratching turning into tentative prods into the knotted muscles of Jensen’s neck and shoulders, Jensen saying nothing but for soft sighs of pain and relief as Jared hits the trouble spots.

Jensen is a good man, with a shitty job in a shitty world, Jared realizes, and the sudden parallel is startling, they were alike in so many ways, before they even met.

It makes Jared feel extremely guilty, the way he’s judged Jensen. He does what he can to survive, to not be swallowed whole by this great big ravenous world. Just like Jared.

He lets his hands drop softly to his lap, staring at the few freckles on the back of Jensen’s neck.

“Thank you,” Jensen says. Jared is beginning to hate those words. He doesn’t deserve them.

“You did good. You should be proud.”

“I’ll be proud when the deal doesn’t fall to shit. We’ve made the agreements but there are so many things that could go wrong. There’s no telling what will go down.”

“But you closed the deal. You made that happen, that agreement, when no one else could.”

“Wouldn’t have been able to do it if it weren’t for you,” Jensen says quietly.

“Me?” Jared almost laughs. “I did nothing but stand there looking cute in a tux and pants that were too tight.”

“You’ve… Jared you’ve done more for me these past few months more than you will ever know, more than many have.”

“Glad I could provide the service.”

“I don’t mean the sex,” Jensen says, lips quirking. “Though that’s definitely not a bad thing to include.”

“What, then?”

“I’m myself when I’m with you. Which sounds silly because it makes me question who I was before I met you, but it’s true, and I am. You look at the world, Jared, and it’s all so pragmatic to you, like every problem can be solved and—

“Because it can.”

“Yeah, but I never saw it like that, until I met you. I never saw the morality in it. It always seemed so black and white. I’m a crime lord, I live by a vow of sin and yet... there’s suddenly dignity in it. Meaning. Because of you.”

“But I didn’t do anything.”

“You find integrity and justification in what you do. In everything you do. I’ll never learn where you get it from.”

It’s probably true, and Jensen’s probably right, but now more than ever Jared sees the double-edged sword in that. There are certain actions that shouldn’t be justifiable. Even when they’re logistically right.

It eats at Jared too much to think about, so he lets his hand drift again, card through the short hairs on Jensen’s head, the professional part of his widows peak that Jared’s come to adore so much. Jensen pushes into the touch again, closing his eyes and humming contentedly.

Gnawing at the inner meat of his lip, Jared averts his eyes, it’s the only way he can lie through his teeth. “You know, I could come with you to the next meeting. Be the expert opinion in the room, if you wanted.”

“You do too much already.”

“And I do it for you, without regret,” Jared says, and means it, even with the ulterior motives behind it.

“I can already see the gears in your head turning,” Jensen says wryly, the teasing in his voice rough with exhaustion, rumbling in his chest, “You can’t wait to get in there to save the day.”

“So you’ll let me help?”

Jensen yawns in response.

“We really need a vacation.” Jared mutters.

“I’ll take you one time, up to Belladonna in Vancouver. There’s a lake, and meadows. It’s nothing like Vegas. You’d love it.”

“I’d only love it if you came with me.”

“When I’ve earned it,” Jensen yawns again, colossally so. “Less talk, more sleep.”

It’s Jared who actually puts the thought into execution, nudges Jensen into the bedroom, sits him down on the mattress, slowly unbuttons his shirt, unties his shoes. Were it any other day it’d feel like a stupid gesture of adulation. Jared is not a maid. But taking the mythos of Jensen Ackles apart piece by starched piece in this moment feels like the only thing Jared wants to do. Jensen leans into Jared’s touch like he’s seeking the warmth rather than the assistance. When he’s standing, clad in nothing but his t-shirt and boxers, blinking sleepily, Jared strips down quickly, presses the heels of his palms to the small of Jensen’s back, guides him to bed.

“You are too good to me,” Jensen mumbles, spooning up against Jared’s back, tucking his chin in the groove of Jared’s shoulder.

“Less talk,” Jared whispers, brining Jensen’s wrist up, placing a kiss against the skin there, “More sleep.”

It’s the first time they go to bed together without partaking in some sort of rigorous sexual activity. Jensen doesn’t really let go. Jared closes his eyes, indulges as much as he can. At least, for now, they have this.

\--

True to his word, Jensen lets Jared start attending all of the meetings. It’s almost too easy, and Jared spends the following few days in a disgusting mix of self-hatred and guilt and helpless adoration for this new unformed thing between him and Jensen. The hours they spend together then practically triples. Jared is careful only to leave the hotel for the time being to see his mom, and run errands with Chris. The rumor is that Pellegrino is still looking for him, but the bloodlust has abated just slightly now that Jeff Morgan is back in town. 

Jared attends maybe one more meeting with Jeff, and he already knows that he’s got all he needs to put this entire operation behind bars. But he doesn’t. The following two weeks of reporting to Amell are more than enough, and it doesn’t take much to figure out that Agent Amell and the rest of the FBI are quickly losing patience.

Jared stalls as much as he possibly can. But even then it’s not enough. It stretches on forever, the constant fear of fucking up and getting caught by Jensen, but Jensen’s trust in Jared only seems to grow each day they spend together. It’s unbearable. He has to end it, now.

The two weeks that follow his agreement with the FBI are somehow, miraculously, some of the best in Jared’s life. They’re by no means uneventful; Jeff and Jensen officially go into business together, begin putting out the shipment, breaking it up into segments, distributing it to buyers in other cities. There’s never not work to do, whether Jared is forging numbers in documents to cover up certain costs of the hotel or checking in anonymous guests who stay for an indeterminate amount of days. There is always some corner to be cut, some rule to be broke, some meeting to attend with Chris hovering over his shoulder.

Jared, quietly and privately, begins carrying a gun on him. He never once uses it, really tries to avoid thinking about it, because carrying it on him means that he has gotten used to it. It means that he has gotten more accustomed to what this job asks of him, means that he doesn’t really have as much of a problem with it as he thought. That doesn’t terrify him as much as it should.

So there is the work, which keeps him busy at all times, and then there is Jensen, who makes everything about Jared’s life more agonizing and wonderful all at once. The rest of the team has blessedly decided not to comment, although Chad has made a few well placed offers to pick up condoms and lube on a run to the grocery store, while Jared often catches Gen smiling at him for no reason, like she’s in on the secret too.

This thing is new, but most mornings, more often than not, Jared ends up waking with Jensen beside him. Jensen never pushes the issue, and Jared really never addresses it, they just inevitably end up falling into bed together, or simply sharing space and conversation.

It is impossible not to be overwhelmed by it, as far as Jared’s concerned. Because by all appearances they are not in a relationship, professional around others, but behind closed doors it is without a doubt anything but professional. Behind closed doors it’s sex on any and all surfaces in the penthouse, and talking until they fall asleep. It’s wearing Jensen’s shirts when he pads into the kitchen to make coffee, its tying Jensen’s ties for him just because he can, it’s thumbing at the stubble on Jensen’s chin that he’d missed while shaving, because they’d taken far too long in the shower and he’d rushed through the rest.

It’s all that and more, an unspoken feeling blossoming between the two of them that makes everything better, not just sex and intimacy, but the business. He and Jensen are in sync, so much so that the business has never seemed better. The hotel is thriving, the under the table crime business is thriving, and despite the fact that he carries a gun, despite the fact that he’s never been more in danger of losing his life, despite the fact that every second spent in this hotel is one of deception, and betrayal, despite all of that, Jared’s never been happier.  

This had never been the plan. Jared’s plan had been get in get out, work a regular run-of-the-mill desk job for a solid year, maybe a year and a half just for emergency savings, and then get the hell out of dodge. He’d never meant to like his job; he’d never meant to feel at home with the people he worked with, to become ensnared into this world. He’d certainly never meant to fall for his boss.

And yet, it didn’t feel like something so unlike Jared that he didn’t recognize himself. He was still himself, but he felt stronger, surer, unrelenting in his steady belief that things would work out in the end, even despite the dread in his stomach. He wakes every morning thinking this will be the day he turns them in, takes the opportunity to get out of the situation before things get worse.

Then Jensen will stroll into the bedroom, wrapped in a robe, hair wet from the shower. He’ll smile lazily at Jared and Jared will think he could do every morning just like this.

If this was a fairy tale, this would be the happily ever after.

As things naturally go for Jared, this is not the case. Theirs is a terrible world and it is rare that things only go so happily. Jared can only sit here, enjoy it, and wait for the shoe to drop, know that the moment is coming when Jared will have to kiss all this goodbye and never look back. Amell and the FBI aren’t going to wait much longer, and all of this, every second spent with Jensen, has to end.

On his next visit to see his absent mother, Jared drops the information he knows they need. Another meet up to distribute more of the shipment. Tomorrow night, eleven pm, down by the warehouse where they’ve moved the stash. Jeff will also be offering weapons for protection.

“Great. We’ll ambush everyone as soon as we have all the targets in sight, take them into custody,” Amell explains shortly, and Jared sees a new kind of hunger, one he’s never seen in a man. It’s untainted by lust, ambition in its purest form. He will stop at nothing. “We’re going to come and cuff you too, just stay at the hotel, act surprised, and go along with it. Once we’ve got you separated from the pack, you’ll be with us behind the glass as we interrogate.”

“What if something goes wrong?” Jared’s stomach is absolutely twisting with anxiety. “What if a gun goes off, I don’t want anyone to die.”

“My men will be instructed not to shoot unless shot at. So how tonight goes is entirely up to your boss.”

“But what if—”

“We’ve gotta move, Padalecki. Now. Either you go along with it, or you go down with the rest of them.” 

It’s the right thing to do. Jared tells himself this on repeat, as he nods, as he listens to the rest of Amell’s run-through of the plan, as he walks back to the car on stiff legs and gets in, as Chris asks if he’s alright. In twenty-four hours’ time, give or take, this will be over. Because it’s the right thing to do. Jared will go into Witness Protection, because it’s the right thing to do.

Jared will leave Jensen; will leave all of them to the wolves, because it’s the right thing to do.

He tells himself this in a mantra all the way up to his room, but it’s somehow less convincing with every repeat. If anything, he reasons, it’s the right thing to do by Jared. It’s the right thing to do to survive. That has to remain the number one priority here.  
  
He’s never had enough of a life to spend it looking after anyone else, save for his mom. He can’t afford to start now.

He bids Chris goodnight with every intention of crawling into bed and avoiding Jensen until he absolutely has to see him. The farther he can stay away, fake business or distraction, up until their separation, the easier it will be in the long run.

Exhaustion coats his skin, makes him rub at his eyes, despite that it’s barely early evening. He’s so distracted by the sensation that he doesn’t even notice until he’s closed the door behind him that there’s someone else in the room.

Instinct is the only thing that sends Jared ducking and covering as the figure--a man, cloaked in the shadow of the darkened room--pulls out a knife, lunges for Jared’s throat. He kicks and knocks the knife out of his assailant’s hand, sending it thumping onto the carpet, and uses his entire weight to launch himself against, like a bull charging the matador, sending the man slamming against the wall. The man’s skull makes a sickening cracking noise on the doorframe but Jared doesn’t relent for a single second, using his advantage of height to lean into the man, thrust his forearm against his throat. The man’s hands swat hopelessly at Jared, scrabbling for purchase, unable to gain ground.

“Who sent you?” Jared growls. This is not the same voice as the Jared who’d defended himself with a gun all those months ago. He does not have to struggle to keep himself from shaking. The calm he feels is eerie.

He knows what to do, how to handle this.

A wet gravel sound huffs from the man’s mouth: laughter. Jared does not bother to repeat the question again; he slams the man’s head back against the doorframe for good measure. He’s this close to blowing cover on all counts. He’s not about to let a nosy nobody screw it up for him.

The man groans, but Jared doesn’t relent. “What were you doing in my room, asshole?”

The answer to that is exceedingly obvious, as Jared can spot from the corner of his eye, every single one of his belongings upended and scattered about. Jared had taken to keeping his papers and layouts in Jensen’s room only, because their business talks often went late, and there was no use in taking trips when he tended to spend the night anyhow. The guy had been looking for something—papers, proof, maps—likely anything that would lead to them finding a shipment. Jared’s sure of it.

It only takes a split second of Jared’s pondering to show before the guy attacks, a surge of strength that manifests in a knee to Jared’s groin, the world whiting out with pain for a few hot seconds. He can hear the heavy breathing, the scrambling to reach for the knife.

Jared’s anger rears its head, lunges again to tackle the man to the ground, lets his fist fall in a series of blows meant to break and bruise. It’s kill or be killed, and if the guy’s going to keep reaching for that goddamn knife…

Jared reaches for his gun, has it drawn cocked and ready within seconds, pressed against the under the guy’s chin. He sits, half upright, breathing steadily.

“Who sent you?” Jared asks again, pressing the barrel of the gun to the guy’s chin. “Don’t make me ask again.”

The light from outside the hall falls across the man’s face, his eyes darting around the room, looking for escape. Jared freezes, struck. It’s not a man. It’s a fucking _kid_. Can’t be more than nineteen years old, maybe twenty. Jared beat his face to hell. There’s blood in his mouth. He’s got fucking peach fuzz on him.

“Shit.” Jared scrambles off the kid, gun still trained, but no longer trying to crush him or make him bleed. The kid groans and rolls over, clutching at his bruised face. He looks up at Jared again, eyes wide. He’s just a kid. He’s terrified.

He’s just a scared kid, and Jared had been ready to kill him, or beat him near to it.

They stare at each other. The kid trembling. Jared wondering how the fuck it had come to this.

“Did Pellegrino send you?” Jared cocks the safety again. “Don’t lie. I’ve got a good bullshit detector.”

The kid nods, stuttering around words. He’s almost Jared’s height, but much lankier. It’s sort of like staring at a version of his much younger self.

“You were looking for information about the shipment?”

He nods.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Uh--Colin. Look, please, I have a baby--”

Jared glares, and the kid goes silent again.

In all Jared’s years, he’d always thought he’d be the one defending people like this, protecting them, protecting himself. He’d never thought he’d be the one threatening to pull the trigger.

“Get the hell out of here, Colin. Get the hell out of town, go home to your family, get the hell out of this city, and get the _fuck_ away from the mob. You hear me?”

Colin nods. He looks like he’s almost on the verge of tears.

“Good.” Jared keeps the gun up, jerks his head towards the door. “Get going. Don’t let me catch you around here again.”

The kid practically sprints to the door. He doesn’t thank Jared for sparing his life. He shouldn’t have to, because Jared shouldn’t have threatened it in the first place. Fuck.

Jared takes inventory of the room. Checks to make sure there’s no one else hidden behind the curtains, or the closet. When it’s clear, he slowly and methodically tucks his gun back into his jacket. Sits on the bed. It is equal parts alarming and comforting, how calm he is.

He needs to call Chris, or Chad, who will inevitably call Jensen. They need to know. He waits another few minutes. Gives the kid a head start out of the city. It won’t matter whether or not he found anything. All of this bullshit will be over by tomorrow. All of it.

Gen picks up the phone when he rings down to the offices. She’s also the first to arrive on scene, take Jared’s face in her hands and kiss him on the face, swearing to high heaven what she is going to do to the man.

“Is Jensen here?” Jared asks weakly, watching as Gen bustles to the kitchen and makes him tea, his entire nervous system spread thin. If there had been proof in the room—proof of Jared’s double crossing, proof of the drug locations, proof of the deal with Jeff, proof of anything—it could have been the end for Jared all too soon. If Jared hadn’t seen how young the kid was, it could have been something else entirely.

Even so, knowing the escape route is barely a day’s wait away fills him with dread rather than relief.

“He was with Jeff in Reno earlier this morning,” Gen says darkly. “But he’ll be here within the hour.”

Jared nods jerkily. The earlier need to not see Jensen until he absolutely has to has been replaced by something much more desperate, needing of… something.

He can’t exactly pinpoint what it is until Jensen comes bursting through the door within the hour, just as Gen had said, wild eyed, chest heaving. Chad follows behind, looking uncertain. He exchanges a look with Gen that only serves to the purpose of indicating that Jensen must have been like this from the second he heard the news. Which is to say, almost unhinged.  

“Where is he?” 

“Long gone, I suspect,” Jared replies, rising and going over to him. It’s suddenly such a fucking relief that Jensen is here. All the tension and worry vanishes, the threat feeling that much far away.

“I came as soon as Gen called,” Jensen says. “I want to know how the fuck this guy got in here. Have them triple the security, this won’t happen again.”

“I took care of it just fine,” Jared soothes. He doesn’t know why he’s suddenly able to be calm, just knows it has everything to do with Jensen. “He just wanted to deliver a message, that’s all.”

“A message?” Jensen goes very still.

“A pretty straight and to the point message, if I may say. Pellegrino’s after the stash.”

The tension in the room kicks up several notches, and Jensen’s voice goes absolutely quiet. “Everyone but Jared leave this room. Now.”

Gen and Chad are out the door in seconds, Chris trailing behind, looking apologetic. Jensen doesn’t spare him a glance.

“You really shouldn’t be upset. Chris was doing his job. I’d sent him home; I didn’t think I would be leaving the room. I didn’t know he was here.”

“What was he looking for?”

“Business plans, I guess, any clues to where we might be keeping the shipment. A map where X marks the spot of the shipments. Something to that degree.”

“And instead he got you.”

“Unfortunate for him, really. A map would have been much more helpful.”

Jared’s lighthearted tone does absolutely nothing to simmer down the rage that seems to be emanating off of Jensen in waves, arms crossed over his chest as he looks at the room, like they could still be waiting there to attack from behind the curtains.

“Stop blaming yourself,” Jared mutters.

“Who said I was?” Jensen snaps.

“I did, because I know you. And I know you like to blame yourself for things. So knock it off.”

“I gave you my word this wouldn’t happen to you again.”

“Did I say I shot anyone? No. There was a little scuffle, a little debate, and they went on their merry way, okay? Just a regular day at work in the mob.”

Jensen glares, turns away. “This isn’t a joke. If something had happened to you—”

“But it didn’t. Nothing happened. So don’t even bother finishing that sentence.” Jared crosses the space between them, takes Jensen’s face in his hands, thumbs at the pout of his mouth. “Jensen, I’m fine. You don’t have to worry.”

The truth is that Jared is _not_ fine. Every second he spends in this hotel playing double agent is a second he cheats death, because at this point he’s almost asking for it. Even given all the luck and careful tiptoeing he’s been doing, he can feel the inevitability of being caught. Only one question remains: who will catch him first, in the end? He has to play the part. Jared’s sick of being reminded of that.

It is only now, standing close to him, that Jared realizes Jensen is the only person who he feels himself with. Which should not be how it feels given how Jensen is the very person he is betraying, but his unwavering trust in Jared, his protection, speaks to a truth that is becoming more and more apparent every moment they are near one another: Jared has changed. Jared is no longer the man who first set foot into this hotel, and of all the plans he’s made in this life, falling this deeply for someone this dangerous had not been one of them.

“I’m fine.” He closes his eyes presses his mouth to the crease in Jensen’s forehead, slow and sure, keeping him close.

Jensen pulls back to look at Jared, eyes dark. “Good,” he says simply, and then he’s yanking Jared down and kissing him.

It feels so good at first that Jared gasps against Jensen’s mouth, a wave of relief and sensation washing over him. Nothing has ever felt so good, so unexpectedly hot, and to give into it hits him in a rush. Jared throws his entire body into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Jensen’s neck, scraping blunt nails over his scalp, over his shoulders. Jensen’s mouth is unforgiving and possessive, and Jared reciprocates those sentiments whole-heartedly, giving it all he’s got.

It is a mad, desperate and hungry go they have at this. Any other time Jared would want to slow down, to take sweet pleasure in it, but Jensen is growling and Jensen is gasping and they have spent too much time at war to treat any situation, than to end up here after a day like this.

Jensen drags his mouth down the column of Jared’s throat, all teeth and tongue, and Jared keens. He wants too much and everything all at once. He wants Jensen to lift him up and fuck him right against the wall. He wants Jensen to throw him down on the bed and make love to him. He wants to press kisses into Jensen’s body until he knows for certain that Jensen is wrecked from it, craving affection for so long only to be suddenly sated by it.

It is a game of starvation, the contest of who’s the hungrier, who’s waited the longest, and Jared’s not sure if they’re ever going to find out who wins.

Jensen makes a mess of Jared’s shirt, buttons spewing and clattering as he attacks Jared’s throat, Jared’s collarbone, marking where he can, where he must, like it’s his goddamn duty. It’s a bittersweet pleasure, just on the right side of pain, because Jared isn’t sure if he’s able to enjoy anything in life if it doesn’t have a little bit of pain in it at this point. Jensen shoves him back on the bed and Jared pulls him down on top of them, accepting the full weight of Jensen on top of him like it’s some kind of gift.

“You drive me fucking crazy,” Jensen growls, bites sharply at Jared’s collarbone, leaves a mark that will purple, “I nearly lost my mind when I thought that you’d been hurt. I wanted to _kill_ —”

“Shut up and kiss me,” Jared growls back, too needy to explain how badly he wants it, willing to deny themselves the conversation of affirmations and safety. He was lying when he said he was fine, for it all comes rushing at him in one fell swoop. The near death encounters, the mob wars brewing because of him, the FBI waiting for Intel. It’s too much to process, so Jared decides to shut his brain off and let his body fuck out his frustrations.

Jensen, in his possessive need to double check that Jared really is okay, seems to be on exactly the same page.

Their kiss _burns_ Jared, the heat of slick tongues and nipping teeth and bruised lips making the room spin. Jensen hovers over him, coaxing noises out of Jared with frustrating patience and denying kiss after kiss after kiss. Like he’s bent on making Jared just as crazy as Jared makes him. Jared’s never made noises like this before, he’s a hopeless mess of moans and shuddering breaths where he can get them, held together only by the consistent pressure of Jensen’s mouth.

He’s done with talking, they both are. Jensen moves those agonizingly slow kisses away from Jared’s mouth and over his body, down his neck, his chest, lingering for one torturous moment on Jared’s nipple, sucking and biting until Jared’s body bends off the mattress. The trail continues downwards, over his ribs, down the path of his stomach, but even Jensen’s losing patience, as much as Jared is, his hands clenching on where they hold Jared’s hips down against the mattress every time Jared tries to move.

Jensen only tears his gaze away from Jared’s skin when he goes to tear off Jared’s pants, and it’s an expression of such unadulterated desire that Jared visibly shudders, hissing through his teeth as his cock is freed from the confines of his boxers and Jensen’s breath ghosts over it. The temperature rises several degrees, but Jared doesn’t want to be blown, Jared doesn’t want Jensen to stare into his eyes calmly and in control as he gets him off. Jared wants to be _fucked,_ boneless, senseless, and thoughtless. He gropes for the condoms and the lube in the side table drawer blindly, practically throws them in Jensen’s direction.

When Jensen slides the first finger in, Jared holds back a shout by biting the back of his fist. When Jensen slides the second finger in, Jared’s hips are pumping, and he’s panting, can’t see straight. When Jensen adds the third finger, there’s not even resistance on Jared’s part, Jensen finds his prostate in a second and Jared slams his head back into the pillow, teeth rattling, unable to look at Jensen for fear of coming all over himself, without even being touched.

Jensen inside him suddenly feels like the cure all remedy for this rabid want, and Jensen seems intent on doing exactly that. Jared flips over onto all fours, back to Jensen, biting back a softer moan as Jensen palms his ass, finger brushing against his entrance, and then disappearing to put on the condom.

He knows that they’re essentially fucking for different reasons, Jensen to reconnect, Jared to forget, but they meet in the middle and it’s still like nothing has changed. Jared _needs_ Jensen, but not for the reasons that were so plausible before.

He doesn’t need Jensen for his money, for his status, for being Jared’s one-way ticket out of his shitty place. Jared needs him because Jensen is the only one that’s able to take Jared apart, remove Jared from his obligations and his to-do lists and his goddamn ambitions.

He gets to forget, if just for a little while, exactly who he is and what he has to do to survive.

Jensen pushes inside him, and Jared shouts, swings a hand back to grab at Jensen’s hip and holds him there. He hadn’t been prepared for it, has been fucked countless times before but had not been prepared for the simple fact of Jensen inside him like this, hard and fast and trembling with trying not to thrust all the way in. They’ve fucked before, but it’s never felt so in danger of being something that would shatter Jared. But he wants it, can’t think of anything fucking else than getting Jensen inside of him and keeping him there.

“More,” Jared gasps, throwing his head back like an animal, clawing at the sheets, incessant and enthralled and so turned on he can’t think beyond one word syllables, “More. Jensen. Fuck. Me.”

The pleas work their magic, Jensen grabs Jared’s hips and pumps harder, the pressure making Jared see white where he was seeing his hands, the outline of the sheets in the light. He can’t breathe above the pleasure steeping his lungs like humidity, thick and heady. He can feel the sweat gathering along his skin, can feel Jensen kissing it off his shoulders, the back of his neck, the vulnerable spot behind his ear, and he can do nothing to escape that pleasure, only turn into it and beg for more, wonder what the fuck he’d been doing these past few months instead of _this_.

There are a lot of things happening, the wet slap of skin, the guttural noises rumbling in Jensen’s chest, the breathless pants rushing out of Jared’s. Jared can only keep his eyes screwed shut tight in an effort to stave off his own orgasm, wants to linger a bit longer in this blissful burn of almost-there-but-not-quite.

Jensen, to his credit, follows through on Jared’s request and fucks him hard. Jared fucks back, rolling his hips desperately, any and all thought disconnecting from his body that isn’t related to the throbbing arousal between his legs, unfurling out to all his limbs. They discover a new level of sensation when Jensen hauls Jared upright into kneeling position, spreads his knees apart on the mattress and continues ramming into Jared, the new angle targeting Jared’s prostate with every stroke of Jensen’s cock. Jared moans high in his throat, scrabbling for purchase to get a handhold, gripping Jensen’s hip with one hand and cradling the back of Jensen’s head with the other, as Jensen sucks bruise after bruise into the juncture between Jared’s neck and shoulders, his heaving chest pressed tight to Jared’s quaking back.

It’s fucking mind robbing, and the only thing keeping Jared upright is Jensen’s arm banded across his waist, and the notion that moving will mean that Jensen can no longer fuck him like this, hard and fast and sending pulses of whiplash pleasure ricocheting inside him with every roll and snap of hips. Jensen’s other hand tugs at Jared’s nipples hard, and Jared feels like he’s inhaling hot smoke with every strangled breath, his lungs filling with it until he can’t breathe all together.

He doesn’t have to beg for more, Jensen fills the need without asking, seems just as lost to the current as Jared is, body devoid of thought and conscience, intent only on drawing this out longer, harder, faster, sweeter, laying claim to Jared’s body in every way he can.

And then, Jensen releases a particularly animalistic groan, and his hand drops from Jared’s chest down to his cock where it strokes in an agonizing and contrasting pace with the thrusts, thumb rubbing leisurely circles along the slit, like he’s got all the time in the world.

Jared’s body locks, paralyzed in place as the orgasm hits him, holding onto the back of Jensen’s head for dear life as he clenches down, hips twitching small aborted motions straight into Jensen’s tight fist. His orgasm seems to only climb, the kind of pleasure with no limit as Jensen’s rhythm begins to falter and he curses a blue streak in Jared’s ear. He doesn’t try to pull off even as he starts to level out, simply lets Jensen fuck up into him, grinds down for all he’s worth, over sensitive and sore all at once. It’s almost embarrassing, how Jared needs it to hurt a little for it to be real in this moment. Almost, except for how it feels too good to have any regrets. He could do this for hours, Jensen inside him. His muscles tremble and scream with strain but the rest of him feels too good to come down, body firing on all cylinders, unwound and undone.

He only becomes aware that it’s over because Jensen has stopped moving inside him, is now panting in the crook of Jared’s neck, pressing his lips over and over into the places where he’d just been making his mark. He’s still holding Jared up. He wants to warn Jensen not to let go for fear of keeling over, but his tongue isn’t capable of forming words in its sex stupid phase.

Jensen slips out of him inch by agonizing inch and Jared moans at the loss, clenching down, startled to realize that he could gladly go another round.

Jensen notices it, too. Disposes of the condom and leans Jared back on the bed, pushing his legs back until Jared is exposed, sweating, wanting, for only Jensen to see.

Jensen doesn’t speak, just slips three fingers right back in Jared’s ass as if they’d never left. Swallows down Jared’s cock for good measure.

It is, once again, that fine line between pleasure so good it’s almost pain, and Jared craves that particular brand of pleasure, feels like an addict to it, one taste and he’s gone on it.

Jensen fucks Jared steadily with his fingers and blows him at the laziest pace imaginable, his eyes glazed over but locked on Jared’s every reaction as he does so, seemingly cataloguing each one with every breathless moan that Jared utters, every time he bites his lip.

Considering how hard Jared came the first round, it’s a miracle that Jensen’s able to pull an orgasm out of him at all, but he does it the way Jensen does most tasks; slow, calculated, patient. He wrings it out of Jared and by the time Jared comes, weak pulses of release shooting straight down Jensen’s tight wet throat, he half sobs his way through it, spent beyond what he’d ever considered possible, Jensen’s fingers crooking against his prostate all the while.

Whether he’d been able to tell that he’d wanted it or not, Jensen seemed to have read Jared’s mind and fucked him past coherency, past the ability to form thought. Jared’s incapable of putting thanks into words, presses it into wet and grateful kisses as Jensen rises and lays on top of him, tasting himself in Jensen’s fucked out mouth.

He’s exhausted to the point of passing out, but Jared forces himself to stay awake as long as he can, kisses Jensen all the way through the afterglow, turns them over and curls around Jensen as much as Jensen will let him, keeps Jensen in his eyesight like it’s all he’s got to go on.

Jensen, despite that same exhaustion that makes his limbs languid and his kisses unbearably gentle, keeps his eyes open too.

\--

“Tell me about your mother.”

In the barely visible lighting of the dark bedroom, Jared—his hair curled with drying sweat as he pillows it on Jensen’s chest—can’t see Jensen’s face, but he feels the imperceptible tensing at the mention of his mother. He’s fishing, he knows it. But in just a day’s time, this will all be gone, and Jared is greedy, grasping for whatever moment to moment interaction he can keep. Even pillow talk feels like a gift. So he lets himself revel in the moment rather than shrink away from it, saturates himself in as much of the post-coital afterglow as he can.

“My mother…”

“You never said what happened to her after your father died.”

There is a pregnant pause. Jared stares past Jensen out at the window, the sun beginning to glint over the mountains. Jensen’s lips part several times on a thought, only to close, retry again.

“Died in her sleep. Some kind of aneurysm. I always thought that it was grief that killed her,” Jensen answers shortly: the fourth attempt.

“What was she like? Before she was gone?”

Another pause, Jensen shifts slightly beneath Jared, then sighs, all fight gone out of him as he looks down at Jared, voice pitched low and intimate, as if someone could overhear.

“She was beautiful. Whip smart. Stubborn as all get out. You’d get along like peas in a pod,” Jensen says this all rather dryly, but his hands are brushing Jared’s sweaty bangs back from his head, always so gentle. “She had this laugh that just… it lit up a room when she laughed, and I mean really laughed. My dad used to call it her witch’s cackle, but it was beautiful. The kind of laugh that reminds you that you’re alive. She loved vacationing. When I was young, every summer, she’d take my Dad and me out of the city, for just a few weeks. Insisted that he needed the rest, wanted to show me the world. We went scuba diving in Costa Rica, played golf in Palm Springs. We had a summer home up in Vancouver in the woods, on Belladonna Drive. I grew up going there every summer. Even when my dad couldn’t come, we always went.”

Jensen cards another hand through Jared’s hair, sadness turning down the corners of his mouth in the dawn light. “I think, in the end, she didn’t hate me for what I was, or who I loved, or what I wanted to do. She resented me because she couldn’t be a part of it. Because she’d tied herself to my father’s world, and there was no escaping a life steeped in blood. She didn’t hate me. But she tried. But maybe that’s what killed her, not being able to ever truly be rid of me.” Jensen shrugs. “I guess I’ll never know.”

Jared tries to picture her, the woman standing behind the famous Alan Ackles in all the photos in Jensen’s office. She was tall and beautiful like a model, with Jensen’s eyes, the blonde color of his hair. The only times Jared seemed to ever find a resemblance between Jensen and the photos of his father was when Jensen was angry, or cold, or emotionless. It makes him so grateful that she existed to put such warmth into Jensen, but unbearably sad that it wasn’t always enough.

“I can’t remember a time where my mother wasn’t using,” Jared says slowly, measuring the words in fragments, unsure of how they’ll sound; he’s never really talked about it aloud. There was never any point. “If it wasn’t alcohol, it was drugs, it was gambling, it was ugly men who made her hurt. She used to tell me that it was the Padalecki Curse. That we love things too intensely, so intensely that we have to hurt ourselves to be able to withstand it. That we love things with a violence, and it is our greatest strength and weakness all at once.”

He can remember her telling this to him like a scary bedtime story, always at the end of a good day, when she had the peace of mind to tuck him into sleep, kiss his forehead, deliver what wisdom she could before her next bender or abusive boyfriend came around.

“And do you think that’s true?” Jensen asks.

“Maybe,” Jared says. “It’s just superstition, but maybe it explains a lot about me. Why I never left Vegas. I love my mom too much. It’s why it only feels right to let her hurt me in return. I can still see her in my head, the last time I’d checked her into rehab. She wasn’t even crying, she was just looking at me. I’ll never forget that look as long as I live.”

It feels seared into his brain, the devastated disappointment in her eyes. Jared closes his eyes against the memory. He focuses on Jensen, near and warm.

This is the last time he will know this sensation. This is the last time it will be his and his alone.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Jensen whispers, and Jared lifts his head, props his chin on Jensen’s chest so they’re both looking directly at one another.

“I know that.” He feels all too much at once, that he could fall into the green of Jensen’s eyes, get lost in those long lashes, bruise with the soft press of those lips. Jensen wanting to protect him, Jensen caring for him, it brings out all forms of poetry that Jared had never considered himself capable of.

“You are stronger than your mother ever was, Jared. That much I know.” Jensen’s hand leaves Jared’s face, makes the trek over Jared’s shoulder blades, brushing his lower back. No suggestion in it, only offered comfort.

“You can be strong as hell and still make bad choices to end up at square one. Against my better judgment and common sense, I’m here, aren’t I?”

Jensen’s fingers cease their slow drag up Jared’s arm. “Are you worried that I’ll hurt you?”

Jared’s not.

But Jared also knows that he is not what Jensen thinks he is. He is not entirely the man he wants to be. He has spent years fighting, fighting for his mother’s safety, for a better life, and in a few short months, years of fighting had fallen away to reveal Jared as he probably always was, so starved for affection he’d do anything for it when the right person came along. Jensen would never knowingly hurt Jared, but that fact alone is enough to make it feel like a knife is twisting inside Jared’s gut, carving guilt in big block letters on the insides of his ribs. It _hurts_. What a strange thing, love. What a strange and tender pinprick of a thing.

When Jared was young and summer was hot—the kind of summer that scorched, rather than baked—he had taken to stealing the honey from the cabinet to sample. They didn’t have a lot of luxury food items, he and his mom, but there always honey. Real honey, bought from the farmer’s market, thick and viscous. For mom’s tea, for Jared’s Cheerios, for some days when it was so hot they’d take spoonfuls of the stuff and shove them in the freezer, make sweet popsicles.

Then one day, when his mom had not come home again, and Jared was left in their mobile home, bored and hot, and craving something sweet. He’d stood on the counter and taken down a bowl and squeezed the honey out until the drizzles formed a pool. He’d just been about to drag his fingers through the mess and lick them clean when a bee flew through the open window. It hovered, buzzing, and he’d waited for it to perch on the rim of the bowl as if it were approaching a watering hole to drink its fill.

But the bee dove right into the pool of honey, right into the mess, wings fluttering madly, luxuriating in the sweetness, drowning in it.

“No.” Jared swallows, pushes himself up to sitting position with arms that tremble at an overwhelming thought. He looks Jensen right in the eye as he says it, lets the urgency of it bleed into his voice, arterial and vital. “But I know what I feel, and it’s going to hurt me one day, knowing it. Knowing how much, how bad. Knowing I love you something awful.”

Jensen’s expression doesn’t change, he only lifts his head up to meet Jared halfway, kisses him softly. His knuckles brush Jared’s cheek with a gentleness that feels unbearable, undoes the years of fight and struggle in Jared in one fell swoop all over again.

As a kid, Jared hadn’t understood why the bee would do such a stupid thing, why it would willingly surrender to death just for the sake of some honey. He’d been horrified then, almost sick to his stomach, watching it happily die.

Beside him, Jensen burrows into the pillow, eyes closed as he makes a sleepy, contended sound.

Jared understands now.


	8. Chapter 8

The day goes interrupted, without a hitch: a regular day at the Fitzgerald hotel that will only lead to the regular criminal activities of the night. Jared declines the dinner that Sam brings them all before taking off. He doesn’t trust himself to keep it down.

When it gets to ten o’ clock, no one’s left the office yet, sitting tense at their desks and straightening their ties. Mike keeps cocking and un-cocking his gun, a nervous and twitchy habit.

Jared has spent all day wondering what they’re going to do when they realize the truth, twisting himself into knots of worry. Amell had said they wouldn’t shoot unless Jensen’s guys shot back. Jensen wasn’t the trigger happy type, but Jensen also had fiercely protective people looking out for him. People who _would_ shoot, if it came down to it. People who would happily die on their own swords if Jensen needed them too.

Jared tries not to think about that, watches with dread as Jensen emerges from his office silently, gives a terse nod.

They better get moving, Chad says in a low voice. 

Jensen doesn’t ask Jared to come with them, the natural assumption being that Jared’s safer in the hotel than he is anywhere else. Chris goes with Jensen, too. And Mike, and Tom. Jared makes all the show and display of having so much work to do that he won’t even _miss_ Jensen, even though he knows perfectly well that his orders were to stay put until the FBI came to collect him. It was that straightforward, and remains so now.

And still, Jared can’t help the feeling that everything is inevitably going to go wrong. But Jensen smiles, lifts Jared’s hand to his mouth for a quick kiss, says he’ll be back in a few hours, tops, and makes his way out of the office, Tom, Mike and Chris in tow. Gen heads up to her room for the night, tells Jensen to call if he needs anything.

Amell had said they’d be safe. Amell had said they wouldn’t shoot. But Jared doesn’t trust Agent Amell as far as he can throw him. And if one of Jared’s family dies because of him. If something awful happens to any of the, because of him…

Images trickle in, what was and what could be. He thinks about pulling the trigger of a gun for the first time, he thinks about Gen and her sweet smile, Chad and his off kilter sense of crude humor. He thinks of Jensen, he thinks of blood.

It’s dark outside the office, but when Jared looks at the window his reflection looks the same. He’s still the same person on the outside.

It’s all the stuff on the inside that’s become tangled up and mutinous in his gut.

“Goddammit.” Jared mutters, and tears out of the office, calling Chad on his phone.

Chad rolls up to the curb as if he’d been waiting for Jared. He doesn’t ask what’s got Jared so worked up, doesn’t comment as Jared urges him to drive fast. It’s a long drive to the warehouse, and they’re running out of time. Jared can only think of how none of the guys have Kevlar. They’re not prepared for a firefight, they’re not prepared for a struggle, but they will. But even all the weapons of Jeff Morgan’s arsenal won’t save them. Jared tries to resist the sudden urge to leap from the vehicle and dash his own brains out all over the asphalt. He fucked up. He fucked up so bad. And there might not be time to fix it.

By the time they pull up, a few blocks away from the warehouse at a quarter till. It’s a warehouse owned by an offshore company that no one in the world could possibly trace back to Jensen Ackles or his hotel. Jeff’s idea, and brilliant, really.

It didn’t make what is about to happen any less avoidable.

“I’ll go park the car, rendezvous with the others and meet back here,” Chad says shortly, and adjusts the gearshift out of park. “Call me if there’s trouble.”

“No!” Jared blurts, and Chad raises an eyebrow, and Jared knows there’s no mistaking the panic in his voice, high and strangled. “Stay here. Please. I’ll be back in five minutes, tops. Don’t leave.”

Chad opens his mouth like he’s ready to question it, but something about Jared’s pleading does the trick and he nods shortly, puts the car in park, turns the headlights off, lets the engine idle.

Jared doesn’t even hesitate. He’s out of the car like a shot, feet slamming on the pavement as he sprints.

He’s got maybe five minutes, tops, to avoid it. The FBI will be waiting already, he guesses, and if Jared doesn’t get there in time to stop any activities then they’re really going to be in deep shit. He’s got to get there in time. It’s two blocks, maybe three, through a solid square mile of empty warehouses. He knows which one in theory, but running at top speed and trying to read the numbers in the dim lighting.

He can’t run fast enough, his heart his caught in his throat. He sprints into him almost by happenstance, turning a corner gasping for air, he feels like he’s been running forever. Momentum high, he barrels straight into Jensen.

“Jared…” Jensen’s catches him, hands steading on Jared’s arms, soothing, “What the hell are you doing here?”

It’s silly, really, how the world is practically falling around their ears and all Jared can think about is how happy he is to see Jensen one last time, before everything falls to absolute shit. He can’t help it. He throws his arms around Jensen’s neck, kisses him something fierce, brings his lips to his ear in what he hopes will look like sweet nothings, for anyone or anything that might be planted for the soul purpose of listening in.

“Call it off,” Jared gasps for breath like a fish out of water, heart pounding. “You have to get out of here.”

“What are you talking about—”

“It’s an ambush. The DEA and the FBI are going to be there any minute. Call it off. Tell Chris and the others to get out of here. Call Jeff. You have to get out of there.”

He waits for the unbelieving skepticism, but maybe it’s an attest to exactly how far Jensen’s trust in him goes when Jensen raises his phone to his ear a split second later, breathing steadily, brow furrowed. He holds Jared close.

“Call it off. All of it. Clear out. We’re compromised.” Jensen says shortly, and reaches for Jared’s hand the second he hangs up.

Jared yanks Jensen away from the warehouse. They’re not going to escape the FBI, not by any means.

Even if they aren’t able to find the shipment, the FBI has all the photos and documentation that Jared provided. They’ll have enough to haul the gang in, interrogate them. Fraud charges are hefty, but Jared’s almost positive Jensen can dodge those if he’s got a good enough lawyer. It’s the drugs that they need, and as long as the FBI’s got no evidence of them, then, well, the FBI really does have nothing on them. Nothing where it really counts.

“C’mon,” Jared whispers, “We have to get out of here, get back to the hotel.”

He makes towards the street again, where Chad will be at the curb, and Jensen follows, quickly, their fingers tangled together and holding fast. There’s no looking to see if they’re already being followed.

Jared knows they are, or that they will be soon enough.

They slide into the back seat, and Jared doesn’t think, tells Chad to take off for the Hotel, and to floor it.

Chad does, but not without giving Jared a long and searching look in the rearview mirror before revving up the engine again.

It happens in a numbing blur of panic, of worry, the knowledge that Jared knows they’ve likely been spotted, and can’t really reveal how he knows. He has Chad pull them up to the very front of the Hotel in plain sight, makes sure the security cameras have got footage of he and Jensen going back into the Fitzgerald. It won’t be any suitable alibi, but it’ll serve as proof they went back long before the deal happened.

Chad tears off to the parking garage and, Jared goes into autopilot, taking the reins and delivering terse orders, on base instinct. He takes both his and Jensen’s phones, removes the sim cards, and tosses them in the fountain near the entrance of the hotel. The less evidence they have, the better. This place is going to be crawling with agents in maybe twenty minutes, tops, Jared doesn’t trust them a second beyond that.

Jared thinks quickly in the chaos, he always has. It’s sort of his super power, staying practical right when everything is about to go to shit.

But he is more aware than ever of the way Jensen is absolutely silent behind him. He’s not shouting, he’s not demanding to figure out what the fuck happened. He sends a few short texts on his phone just before Jared tosses it but other than that stays silent, staring straight ahead, face blank.

Jared can’t know what’s going through his head. He’s not even sure he wants to.

On autopilot by this point, Jared leads them up to the penthouse. The room is spotless, as Sam always leaves it. There are a few papers and files though. Jared tears them to pieces, flushing one down the toilet and shoving the other in the soil of one of the plants on the balcony.

He doesn’t even look at Jensen until the room seems cleared, at least outwardly, before heading back down to the offices to find Gen. The FBI will come, that is inevitable. But maybe this way, he can save them. Maybe this way, destroying the particularly worst bits of evidence, the fall out won’t be as bad. Even though Jared knows it’s already headed for hell.

He’s halfway through his comb of the entire office area when he realizes that Jensen hasn’t even moved.

Jensen, who hasn’t said a word since they got into the car. Jensen, whose face has shuttered down into something immovable and unrecognizable, chiseled marble, frozen in expression.

“Are you going to help me or just stand there?” Jared asks.

Jensen eyes drop down to the few papers Jared’s shoved into the shredder. He doesn’t move.

Jared tries again, “Look, I know you’re probably really overwhelmed right now, but this isn’t the time to lose your head.”

Jensen’s eyes dart back up at that, and he doesn’t sound lost one bit when he asks, “How did you know this was going to happen?”

Jared’s palms begin to perspire, foreboding heat prickling on his skin.

“Dumb luck,” He lies in a low voice, the words rattling off his tongue without thought. “Overheard it in a conversation between two customers, probably undercover cops, walking through the hotel. I think they’ve been watching us for weeks.”

Jensen’s lips twitch, as if to smile. “Lucky you overheard.” His voice sounds strange. “Right place, right time.”

They stare at each other, neither of their expressions betraying a single emotion, a silent tug of war.

Around them, the shredder is whirring, and the office is silent. Sweat trickles down the back of Jared’s neck, gathering at the nape.

There’s a commotion at the front of the lobby, Jared can hear It from here, a murmur that grows into a shout of voices, bodies rushing past the doors in full combat gear, bold yellow letters as both Jensen and Jared are surrounded, forced down to the floor.

“FBI, nobody move!” Jared recognizes Amell’s voice immediately, the click of guns and shuffle of feet.

Someone in black gear pushes Jared forces him down onto the decorative carpet of the office floor, zip ties his hands behind him. Jared doesn’t resist, just lowers himself to the ground and watches as they do the same with Jensen.

“You’re under arrest,” an agent says, “For the possession and shipment of narcotics." 

“Where is it?” Stephen growls, turning around to face Jensen. “Where the fuck is the stash, Ackles?”

Jensen’s expression remains neutral, but Jared knows the parted lips of surprise when he sees them. Jensen says nothing.

“Take them in, both of them,” Amell says tightly, bristling with contained rage. Jared cannot help feel the slightest bit smug. He’d done his part, and nobody had to get fucked over, not really. They’re dragged out of the front lobby, crowds gathering to follow them, photos being snapped, cameras going off, officers telling standers by to step back.

Jared lets himself be manhandled into the police vehicle, Jensen’s eyes fixed on him from yards away the whole while.

 

\--

 

Jared is hauled into FBI Headquarters separate from the rest of the gang. Most of the accused were found at the hotel, all doing completely legal and innocent tasks. They’re hauled in for questioning anyway.

He follows Amell, identifies each and every one of them as they stand in line for mugshots and questioning. Yes, he nods, that’s Christian Kane, and Genevieve Cortese. That’s Chad Michael Murray. That’s Tom & Mike. He IDs them in a heartbeat, and watches from behind a two-way mirror as each of them go through hours of questioning.

It is a long and brutal, but not a single cover story has a weak spot. They’ve all got alibis, innocence, and testimony in spades. Not one of them relents to what Jared knows to be the truth. It’s admirable, really, but with each passing minute Jared is made aware of the tension in the room, the simple fact that the FBI hasn’t got shit on Jensen, or anyone who works for Jensen apart from minor fraud charges, because Jared actively chose to go and fuck it up.

It also becomes clear that whatever information Jared had given them was all for naught. They’d searched the entire stash of warehouses, and not one ounce of drugs was found, not even residual evidence. The hotel, likewise, was clear of evidence. There was no paper trail for the drugs, no electronic records. For all Jared’s painstaking efforts, the biggest charge the Fitzgerald will be getting as a business is fraud, and from the sound of the hell everyone is giving the FBI, the charges aren’t likely to last.

Jared’s hunch had been right, there had been FBI surveillance around the warehouse area, so Jensen and the guys had definitely been spotted there. But without Jeff’s party showing up, without hide nor hair of the actual deal going down, there were no drug charges they could possibly be slapped with. Jared doesn’t know how the fuck Jensen had predicted that something might go wrong, only figured that Jensen just happened to be paranoid enough to do it.

Either way it was brilliant, it was brilliant and exciting and terrifying. They are going to get off scot-free. Jared had selfishly saved all of them, just as soon as he’d been ready to fuck them over.

It doesn’t make it any easier, what happens next.

Jared had apparently forgotten that in saving them from getting fucked over, he’d fucked over himself.

Gen, the most recent to be dismissed, is followed by Jensen. Outside the interrogation room, Jared goes very still, barely breathing; watching as Jensen takes a seat, places his cuffed hands on the table.

Stephen clears his throat suddenly and smiles, making himself known as if he weren’t the only other person in the room. Nothing about it is remotely kind, even as he takes out a small silver key, offers another smile.

“You’re a businessman, Mr. Ackles. You’re well respected, a man of honor in this city. Can I trust that you’ll hold those principles even in this untimely situation?”

Jensen says nothing, silently raises his wrists with a nod, allowing Stephen to undo the handcuffs. He makes a big show, Jared notices, of rubbing his wrists, like it really was a burden to have to wear those.

It’s meant to lure Jensen into a comfortable environment, but Jared recognizes the subtle tic in Jensen’s jaw anywhere, thinks of a coiled cobra just before it strikes.

“Your courtesy is much appreciated,” Jensen says quietly. “Now, Agent, I’m sure we can get all this sorted out, and you can explain to me the reason I've been brought here?”

He’s had plenty of other reasons to fear Jensen Ackles before this moment but it is here, sitting in a room surrounded by armed men, that Jared’s more scared than he’s ever been of Jensen in his life.

“Your father was a well-known criminal, Ackles. The apple never falls far from the tree.”

Jensen only chuckles quietly, regarding Amell as if he were a petulant but amusing child. “What is it you’re trying to say, Agent Amell?” Like indulging Amell with nothing but mild attention was all he was going to do. Amell doesn’t respond, and they face off for what feels like eons, long enough to make Jared’s fingers twitch with impatience.

“Are you going to talk, Mr. Ackles?”

“Are you going to ask me something, Agent Amell?”

“Why don’t you start with what you were doing with Mr. Padalecki near the warehouses.”

“You were following me?”

“We have reason to believe you’re involved in less than legal activities.”

“Date night,” Jensen responds smoothly, dodging the accusation. “It is a sad day when a man can’t take a walk around at night with his significant other without it being criminal.” His head tips to the side just so, as if a thought just occurred to him. “Why so curious? Were you looking for something?”

Stephen pointedly ignores that, “We have reason to believe that you were about to take part in a massive drug deal, Mr. Ackles. Do you know anything about a drug deal going down?”

Jensen purses his lips in thought, taps a finger against his chin thoughtfully. “Hm. Afraid not. I wish there was something I could do more to help.”

Amell smiles. “You’re being very difficult, Mr. Ackles.”

Jensen smiles back, ever so polite. “And you’re barking up the wrong tree, rent-a-cop.”

They stare each other down again, and Jensen asks. “Have the rest of my employees been questioned and released?”

“Even your date.” Amell lies. Jared’s hands clench.

“Any findings? Confessions of my true criminal nature?”

Amell narrows his eyes. “I’m supposed to be doing the interrogation here.”

“By all means.” Jensen offers politely, and Amell glowers. “But first, I’d like my phone call.”

Amell sighs, like he’s dealing with a very temperamental child. “You don’t get a phone call, Mr. Ackles. We called your lawyer for you, but we’re not giving you the opportunity to tip someone off to move the stash or delete the evidence.”

“Even if I promise to be on my _best_ behavior?” Jensen’s just toying with him now.

“No can do. We had a guy on the inside. So we’ll call your lawyer, but don’t expect much special treatment than that, even if you are on good behavior.”

Jensen doesn’t respond, but there’s no missing his eyes flicking imperceptibly over to the murky glass. He can’t actually see anything, but his eyes seem to burn straight through the bulletproof window like lasers anyhow.

It doesn't matter that Jared is behind double-sided glass and therefore out of sight. He's never seen such a terrifying look on anyone's face, the cold suddenly floated in such a bright fury, Jared feels he might burn under the gaze. They unknowingly stare each other down.

Jensen crosses his legs and assumes a casual stance in the chair, like he’s got all the time in the world to sit and make Amell twiddle his thumbs. He purses his lips, like he’s holding back a smile.

“Regardless of what edge you may claim to have your case is, sadly, without much evidence.”

“We have evidence.” Amell snaps, glaring, as if Jensen is stupid. “Enough to jail your ass for life Ackles.”

Jensen, ever the poker face, knows a bluff when he sees one. Jared grips the edge of the desk tighter where he leans back against it.

“But all that, I assume, isn’t enough without my confession.”

“We’ll get it out of you in time. We’ve got some pretty good interrogators.”

“And I’ve got an amazing lawyer, BAR certified, who should be here any minute now.”

“Oh yeah?” Amell snorts. “Fat chance. I’m sure he’s headed for the hills like the rest of your cronies are I assume, hearing that their boss got caught with his hand in the wrong cookie jar. Where’s he at, huh Ackles?”

“ _She_ is right here,” says a voice at the door, “And she’d appreciate that you’d refer to her client by his proper name, thank you very much sweetheart.”

“Speak of the devil.” Jensen says with a winning smile, as Hilarie sweeps into the room. Her spine is ramrod straight, stilettos immaculate, not a hair out of place. But she’s got Agent Amell pinned to the chair with her eyes as if she’s holding a knife to his throat.

“Ma’am, this is a restricted—”

“Being that I am his Lawyer; I’m going to have to ask you to kindly step out of the room so I can converse with my client.”

“Your _client_ ,” Amell bristles, “Is part of a federal investigation. I have every right—”

“Do you.” Hilarie says sweetly, with a smile that could cut diamonds. “We’ll see how long that lasts, shall we? In the meantime, I want…”

She rattles off a list of accommodations and legal jargon that makes Jared’s hollow and exhausted head pound suddenly with pressure.

It really shouldn’t surprise him that Hilarie is the ace up the sleeve. He can remember the story of Jensen setting her up with Jeff--Hilarie must have known Jensen at Harvard. Her being here is as much of an IOU to Jensen as it is protecting her--and her husband’s--own interests. Jensen merely sits there, like he’s trying really hard not to look too entertained by the whole thing. Every thirty seconds, though, his eyes dart to the glass again, sweeping over Jared every time and sending him awash with misery.

When it becomes clear that the interrogation is going to stretch on for much longer now, and even more abundantly clear that Hilarie is going to cut Amell off at every pass, Jared politely asks the other agent in the room if he can go to the restroom. He doesn’t really need to ask permission; Jared’s done his duty, and there’s no safer place he’d rather be. By now word has gotten out that Jensen Ackles was taken into custody, and Jared wouldn’t be surprised if the other gangs weren’t already beginning to figure out who turned him in. Either way, the safest place in the world for him at this moment is in this building. He’s got no plans to go elsewhere.

He wanders around the hallways of the more populated parts of the FBI headquarters, most of it being waiting rooms and lounge areas. He pisses, gets some coffee, feels sick to his stomach the instant he takes a sip, and throws the coffee out. Restlessness burrows in his skin like fleas, itching to move and escape these walls.

Hours slip by and before Jared knows it, dawn has arrived in a burst of brilliant tangerine that looks odd in this building. He finds himself wandering down to the waiting room, where civilians are filling out reports, waiting to be seen. An agent walks in to start the day, perfectly pressed suit and briefcase in hand.

He had not expected there to be this much waiting. Waiting for escape, waiting for freedom, waiting to get away from the encroaching guilt spreading like cancer in his abdomen.

Jared had waited twenty-five years for this. He can wait a bit longer.

A familiar babble of voices comes from Jared’s left. He raises his head groggily, not aware he’d been dozing off in the chair he’d propped himself in next to the water cooler.

It’s Hilarie. Her face looks taut with exhaustion, but her eyes remain bright and vigilant there’s a ghost of a smile on her face as she heads to the front desk and begins to fill out some information on a clipboard.

She’d never leave the Lion’s Den unless she’d gotten what she came for. Jared frowns, puzzled, only to freeze as Jensen walks up behind her, keeping his space and let her handle the paperwork, but still undeniably there.

Jensen is there.

Jensen is looking at him.

Jared stands, knowing that he should walk away, but just the motion of doing so makes everything seem off kilter and spinning. He’s going to throw up. He’s sure of it. He can feel his hands shaking. Blood has rushed from his head, leaving him feeling faint, his vision spotty, and he quietly waits where he stands, counting the tiles beneath his feet, eyes locked firmly on the floor. Feels like a coward and a baby as he does so.

He knows by now, between the hours of midnight and sunrise, that Jensen has had time to process it, that hours have passed since Jensen’s pensive staring in the car, minutes have overlapped since the phone call. He knows it was Jared who betrayed him, betrayed all of them.

He then forces his gaze up to Jensen’s, but he knows there’s no good in trying to stare him down.

Jensen smiles, like a hungry shark that smells blood in the water, and Jared breaks his gaze again, his eyes dropping down to Jensen’s hands instead. They slide into pockets, hidden, and Jared watches, his throat full of acid, as Jensen slowly saunters over.

This moment, Jared soon realizes, is far worse than he could have ever anticipated.

“So,” Jensen says. His voice is soft and quiet, but Jared knows better. He doesn’t even have to look at Jensen. The ice in his voice is practically freezing the walls, and even Hilarie is affected. Jared sees her pause in her writing, before she continues.

“How much did they offer you to further their cause and ruin me? Tell me Jared, how much did it take to make you lie and frame an honest business man?”

“You're not an honest business man,” Jared says hollowly, but the words sound false to even him. “You're a gangster.”

Jensen laughs, an awful sound. Jared still can't look directly at him. The expression of derision and disgust is so vile it wafts across the space between them and clogs his air ducts.

Jensen hates him. Jared deserves this.

Another pause, a murky thought clouding Jensen’s eyes as Jared watches him make a decision, difficult and pressing on his skin.

“And you,” Jensen breathes, “Are going to regret what you’ve done to my business.”

Several things happen, all too fast, all at once.

Jensen lurches into action, and before Jared can even register the need to put his fists up Jensen’s hauling him up shoving him against the wall, forearm against Jared’s throat, as he makes to press against Jared’s windpipe.

Voice effectively cut off, Jared’s helpless when Jensen leans close, whispering over the clamors of the agent at the front desk. Jared squirms to get free, but Jensen grabs him and slams him back against the wall, and Jared’s head spins. Jensen’s body is a solid and thick wall of repressed anger, holding Jared still so he can lean in close and speak.

“I’ll give you a warning,” Jensen says, terse, fast. “A little handout from me.”

Jared’s skin goes cold. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t struggle against Jensen, doesn’t try to escape. Last night they’d been talking beneath the covers. Now, Jensen’s hands are at his throat. His body, traitorous, too easily enjoys the touch, even as scared as he feels in the moment.

“Pellegrino. He’s gunning for you, and you can’t hide, not anymore. Not behind me, and not in here. You’re not safe. And you may be a bastard, Padalecki, but you don't deserve that sort of fate. No one does. So get the fuck out of here, and don’t look back.”

Jared knows he’s not lying, and hates that he does, because Jensen’s more urgent than angry, and he still hasn’t hurt Jared apart from slamming him into the wall.

“Why are you telling me this?” He knows the answer, but he asks it anyway.

And it is now that Jensen gaze doesn't soften so much as it freezes, the hatred sapping out as if soaked up by the sponge of Jared’s words, the thought they trigger.

“Because,” Jensen whispers, “There was a time where I thought having you alive was of value to this world. This is in honor of that.”

Someone finally grabs Jensen and drags him off of Jared.

“But I don’t want to see you ever again, you spineless piece of shit. Not in my hotel, not in my city, not--”

Jensen is yanked around by an agent, cuffs at the ready, and Jensen raises his hands in a wordless apology, his expression suddenly all affable congeniality. And Jared sees Hilarie step in from the periphery, snapping threats about legality and abuse of power to ward off Jensen being cuffed again.

“But you’re a criminal.” Jared says it over and over, dazed, like saying it enough times will make it true. He can’t understand why Jensen would warn him, why he would even care, after all that Jared had done. If what he said was true, a public scene would ruin the reputation of the Fitzgerald for at least the foreseeable future. It would take months to rebuild in terms of professional standing, of good favor in the eyes of Vegas. “You’re a criminal.”

Jensen smiles, slow and terrible.

“The only crime I ever committed was being stupid enough to have thought you were a person capable of anything but selfishness.”

The guards are all but pushing Hilarie and Jensen out the front door, and Jensen throws another taunt over his shoulder as he steps out. “Better save your own ass, Jared, as you always do.”

The door slams with an echo.

Suddenly, Amell is by Jared’s side, breathing heavily from having run out into the lobby. He sighs, frustrated, and runs a hand through his hair. “Gonna go out on a limb here and say you’ve been outed?” He asks, more for a confirmation than for a real answer.

Jared doesn’t answer anyway, and Amell spits out a curse. “Alright, we need to get you out of here,” Amell says shortly. “If Ackles has already tried to grab you in a fucking federal building like that, then it won’t be long until they get you in a back alley somewhere. And if his fucking lawyer got him out of here in a hot second, then you’re really in hot water. We don’t have enough to keep him behind bars, so we need to get you into WITSEC, stat. In case his people come for you.”

Truth be told, it’s not Jensen that Jared’s worried about in the slightest.

“What did he say to you?” Amell asks, leading Jared down the hallway into another office.

The image of Jensen’s face, the sharp and terrifying look in his eyes, slides right in alongside Jared’s permanent memories, right next to the pleading helplessness of his mother.

“That the city isn’t safe.” Jared says numbly. “And that I need to get out of it. Immediately.”

\--

With little to no ceremony, the Witness Protection is lined up entirely within a matter of hours. Jared’s going to move to Missouri. New alias, new name. The FBI will cover his mom’s bills, he'll have a job. His life will be fine. They don’t bother waiting to see if the coast is clear, Jensen made the message perfectly clear.

Of course, it's at that exact moment that everything goes wrong.

They lead him down to the indoor parking garage, where no one but the agents are able to see him clamber into the nondescript delivery van and exit the premises. He’s flanked by agents who carry guns on them, but even as the van pulls out, the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Dread, an instinctive and living thing, refuses to go away, like the laser point of a sniper rifle, knowing it’s there but being unable to tangibly feel it. Even as the van pulls out and into the dark, even as they hit the highway, even as Jared is assured that there’s no safer place for him.

He watches mile marker signs and landmarks go by from the window. The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. Every stretch of mile feels a step closer to freedom, a step closer to the life he’s always wanted. He’d always been sure that leaving this city would be more triumphant than this.

They don’t even see the ambush coming.

The first bullet punctures the front left tire, the van donut wheeling out of control, the driver shouting with a sharp veer to the left, just as the second bullet pierces the back tire, the van officially spinning off the road. Jared and the guards are thrown against their seatbelts violently, limbs knocking about as the van spirals and comes to a halting stop, the smell of burnt rubber acrid and strong.

There’s not a sound of an approaching car for miles apart from the one that’s following them, pulling up with a screech of brakes and a predatory rumble of engine. It’s all Jared is able to register before the van is hit by a hail of bullets.

He releases his seatbelt and hits the deck, flat against the floor, covering his head. The guards and the driver are drawing weapons, taking cover just as Jared had, but it doesn’t take long for them to be taken out effortlessly, riddled with bullets. One lands beside Jared on the floor, his eyes glassy beneath his helmet, his face slack and lifeless. Jared makes to grab the man’s gun and get ready to defend himself, when the gunfire stops. He can hear the engine still rumbling close by.

Before Jared can pick up the dead man’s weapon, the doors of the van are being yanked open, rough hands grabbing Jared and dragging him kicking and screaming for help, out into the open air.

He doesn’t have enough time to take stock and think of routes to escape. It doesn’t take long to realize that this had been the goal all along, but before he can think straight, his face is grabbed and his mouth is forced open, a cloth slapped over his face, sweet smelling.                                                                                     

He’s out in seconds, ears still ringing from the gunshots.

\--

They don’t bother blindfolding him, that’s probably the first sign that Jared is well and truly dead.

He comes to as they drag him from the car to the warehouse, the sky full of stars spinning nauseously in wake of being knocked out and all. He thinks the constellations look recognizable enough that he’s still in Nevada, but he can’t say how many hours have passed, or how far he’s gone. There’s no city in sight. Only desert and darkness.

There are two men--one small and stout, the other huge and hulking—that lead Jared in by his zip tied hands, so that the last thing he sees walking backwards is the stars scattered in the sky.

They don’t bother duck taping him to the chair, none of the usual semantics of your normal cut and dry kidnapping. That’s probably the first sign that Jared is well and truly dead.

There’s a single fluorescent light bulb hanging in the dark of the warehouse, casting a small pool around Jared and nowhere else. He’d feel scared--unsure of just how many people are about to watch him die--but he’s still trying to get his faculties about him, hazed by the drug as he is.

It doesn’t matter, whether he figures out how many are here or not, where he is or not, who’s got him or not. It doesn’t matter because the second they got him, Jared was dead.

Truth be told, he probably had it coming.

“Well, well, well,” the snarky tone of the voice sends chills down Jared’s spine, and Mark Pellegrino enters the pool of light in front of Jared, “Mr. Padalecki. What an honor. I’m positively _enthralled_ to make your acquaintance.”

It would have been better if Sheppard had found him. Sheppard or Morgan or anyone else. Hell, even Jensen’s gang, who’re probably out for his blood too. Anything would be better than this.

Jared doesn’t want to die like this.

Still, he holds his chin up high, pulling his meanest smirk. “Wish I could say the same, but you’ve rather interrupted my plans for the evening. A misstep, I’m sure.”

“Putting your dick where it doesn’t belong was the real misstep,” Pellegrino smirks back, holding out his hand to his side in what Jared assumes was a gesture to someone in the shadows, “Killing one of my men was the real misstep. Thinking you could snitch and not get your skin removed inch by agonizing inch, that was the misstep, you overconfident little _slut_.”

The word brings something out of the shadows; ugly hisses and jeers that make Jared aware of just how many men were in the room. It wasn’t one, it wasn’t two. It was nearly a dozen, if not more, vengeful and starving and ready to spill every drop of Jared’s blood for retribution.

Jared doesn’t let his fear show, keeps his gaze steady on Pellegrino as a chorus of _slut_ echoes throughout the room like a writhing throng of snakes. He grapples with that fear, makes it his own, forges it into iron and wears it like armor.

“It wasn’t easy, you know,” Pellegrino says, “After Stuart disappeared, well, that was just mean. But then Ford disappeared, and, well, we couldn’t have that. That’s bad for business. The plan was to ambush you in the hotel while Jenny went to go run errands. But then you went after him. Such a rush you were in. And then we thought, well, how _interesting_ the night was becoming by that point, there’s no way we couldn’t see it through to the end.” Pellegrino’s eyes glint, like a cat. “We followed the breadcrumbs, and what did we find? The FBI’s best and brightest, turning on his own. You stabbed both of us in the back, you little rat. I’m sure Ackles would love to get his revenge, but unfortunately for him, I got to you first…”

They will most likely torture and beat him to death, if not worse. He does not plan on giving them more than the life they came for, certainly not his pride.

Stupid, but effective at helping Jared keep his calm as he says, “You can bitch all you want, but the fact of the matter is that I beat you. I beat _you_ , and Sheppard, and Ackles, and every other lowlife scum in this town that thinks they own shit. You think I’m the only one? You think the FBI hasn’t got one of me in every goddamn gang?”

The cockiness on Pellegrino’s face flickers a bit, and Jared grins savagely, digs the knife in a little further. “Oh yeah, they’re out there. They may not be as good as me, or as quick as me, but they’re there. In your offices, in your books, in your beds—”

Pellegrino’s fist smashes into Jared’s face like a battering ram, and Jared’s tooth doesn’t even struggle before it comes loose from the gum, cutting against the inside of his cheek as he falls against the pavement with a smack, winded.

It’s the first blow of many. Jared grins and bears it. The room has erupted in hungry jeers again, and Jared is reminded suddenly of the Roadhouse, how the men with wandering hands and predatory eyes were really no different from the ones here; thinking they were entitled to something, thinking that their mere presence gave them a right to Jared’s body, to Jared’s anything. It was as disgusting as it was pitiful. And all Jared could do was laugh.

“The fuck are you laughing at, cocksucker?”

There’s blood bubbling on Jared’s lips, he only laughs harder. One of the men who’d dragged him from the van swings his leg in a vicious kick, Jared feels the air rush from his lungs as the whole world swings out of perspective, landing flat on his back, trying to remember how to breathe and finding it painful to do so.

He continues laughing. He’s almost high with it.

“Who are the others, then?” Pellegrino snarls, yanking Jared’s head back and spitting right in his eye. “You think you’re so goddamn smart, why don’t you tell us who the others are, and then I’ll shoot you in the head, instead of letting these lovely gentlemen have their way with you.”

That eats at Jared’s resolve a little. He can lie down and take a violent and bloody death. But he’d rather be put down like a dog than raped.

It’s the hesitation that makes Pellegrino sneer. “You don’t have shit.” He kicks Jared violently in the stomach again.

“I may know a thing or two,” Jared wheezes, mind racing to keep ahead of the curb. He can make up names, but it’ll take them all of five minutes to realize he’s lying or they’ll kill him anyway.

“And?”

“My mind’s a little fuzzy. All that chloroform.”

“Well, why don’t I have my guys help you clear it?” Pellegrino says, then nods, stepping back, “Boys. Mess him up a little. But leave his tongue in. We’ll need it for talking.”

The darkness seems to crowd closer. Jared’s vision is getting a little hazier.

It is no walk in the park, being beaten to death.

There are breaks in between, it turns out even blood lust tires easily, and the men stand over him as he lies on the floor, preparing for the next blow, hearing flasks passed and cigarettes being lit. One gets put out on his calf; that’s definitely no picnic. He cannot say how long it lasts after the first ten or fifteen blows, because pain becomes the current that passes through his body like a pulse, a rhythm, which is something that anyone can get used to in mind over matter.

Particular parts stick out as most painful. The stubbed out cigarette on his calf, the knife traced along his belly, the kick that hit at such an angle he felt and heard the internal snap, first of one rib, then the other. He’s held under water for a spell the first time he passes out, only to come thrashing and screaming awake, only to be met with a fist that breaks his nose, a sadistic twist and crack of his index and middle fingers.

If there are questions and interrogations, they sound on Jared like voices in dreams. He distantly hears them asking about who he works for, if the FBI really does have other sources, if anyone else in the gangs knew who Jared was and protected him, but it’s lost on him.

They’re on the fourth break before the next round, and it’s getting harder to breathe. Cracked ribs, Jared can feel them, the splintering of bone with each wet breath he takes, blood bubbling and rattling in the back of his mouth. They’re going to kill him. He’s known that since he first woke up but it is only now, staring dazedly at the single light bulb in the warehouse, wishing he could see past and up into the stars, and Jared accepts it as reality.

Jared, who worked his whole fucking life so he could _live_ is going to die in a pool of his own blood in a warehouse, like an old broken horse that’s been put out to pasture.

It’s okay, though, Jared thinks. At least the people he cares about will have a chance to escape. He knows they’ll take care of his mom. He hopes that Gen will make sure her bills go paid, and when Jared’s account runs out of money, perhaps she’ll pay them anyway to honor him after he’s gone. He hopes, but after what he’s done to all of them, that’s not much to go off of.

At least he is safe. At least Jared did everything he could to keep him safe.

“He ain’t talking, boss.” One of the men says, “What’dya want with him now?”

Jared tries to spit in the man’s face, but he can’t move, can’t speak. Only groans in agony, drools blood on the floor. He doesn’t want to know, mostly because he can already guess what might be coming next.

Pellegrino inspects the cigar he had lit sometime during the third break. He doesn’t even look at Jared, and flicks ash in his direction. “Do as you like, boys.”

There’s a loud jeer, and it’s echoed through the crowd as rough hands grab Jared and hold him down, as if he’s capable of fighting back, and he weakly screams as another pair of hands settles on his belt buckle, roves lower.

Everything happens in fragments, as an explosion of sound bursts in the night air. A crack like a whip rings through the air, and all the hands release Jared. A body falls at Jared’s feet, someone’s head knocking his ankle. He blinks, dazed. The room is suddenly full of loud shouts. Anger. Panic. Fear. Another explosion, a second man falls. They’re in the midst of an all out firefight, which can only mean that the FBI has arrived.

But he’s far from safety now.

The room is in chaos, bodies falling left and right, torn to bits by bullets that whistle, nearly silent, the occasional shotgun blast that tears holes into men’s chest. One of America’s top tourist sites is a war zone, scarlet staining the concrete floor and Jared can scarcely drag himself to the nearest corner behind some steel beams in the darkness, propping his back up against them, praying that a stray bullet won’t hit him. Jared can’t even make out a semblance of who they’re fighting against, the gunshots hail from all around them, through the windows and the doorway, which has busted open, a line of people streaming through the door. In his near unconscious state, Jared thinks of the gunshots within fireworks on the fourth of July, of a time where every muscle in his body wasn’t screaming in pain.

The gunshots cut off, a few more bullet shells come clattering to the floor. The warehouse smells like gun powder and blood.

Silence, and then footsteps. A few terse whispers.

They’re looking for survivors, presumably to kill, Jared opens his mouth to call for help when he sees two boots step into his field of vision, right in front of his nose.

He’s saved. He’s saved. He’s--

He hears the cocking of the safety, the steadying breath, the subliminal vibration of the finger settling on the trigger. He’s too dazed to close his eyes. He hopes it will hurt less than breathing right now and—

“Wait.”

All the air leaves Jared’s body in one fell swoop.

If he could scream any further, he would. The simple fact of Jensen’s voice; clipped, cold, none of the warmth that Jared knows to be so much truer to who he is—it’s enough to break Jared’s heart, splintered pieces digging right into his flesh along with his ribs.

Jared has done a lot to survive. Jared has lied, begged, cheated, and bartered his way out of many a tight spot.

The guilt of all those sins combined is nothing compared to this, the presence of Jensen before him, not visible, but just as looming.

“Clear the warehouse,” Jensen says softly, and he hears a woman—Gen?—start to protest before Jensen cuts her off. “We’ve used untraceable bullets. They won’t care that we killed off a thorn in their side. Get everyone else out of here. Murray, you’re with me.”

Jared hears Gen’s protest die in her throat, but she lingers a second too long, looking down at Jared with conflict in her eyes, before she shakes her head clear of the thought and says to the other figures in the darkness, “You heard the boss. Move out. FBI will be on their way any minute. Cover your tracks, go to your respective hideouts, we’ll regroup in the AM.”

She presses a kiss to Jensen’s cheek, whispers something in his ear. His face does not change, nor do his eyes move from Jared’s person.

They stare each other down for eons, or so it seems, as the warehouse empties, as Jared feels the far off screech of tires in the distance. Even with Chad hovering several feet away, shifting nervously, the room only feels like it’s him and Jensen. In the moment Jared knows that Jensen is weighing every exchange they’ve ever had, every glance, every kiss, every word, right back from the very beginning of it all, weighing Jared and his feelings for Jared, against every other obligation and rule that demands Jared be put down.

Jared doesn’t plead, he knows Jensen would look down on him if he did. He merely holds his head up and forces his swollen eyes open to _see_ Jensen, take in the troubled brow and the extreme five o’ clock shadow, the perfectly pressed suit, the spot of blood on his necktie, the eyes that are as hard and unforgiving as stones.

“Do you want me to do it, boss? I can.”

It’s only then that Jared realizes that Chad has had a gun trained on him this entire time. He doesn’t react, just accepts it as simple truth, looks Jensen dead on. Holds his chin high.

The safety cocks. Jensen holds up a hand, stills Chad. The same hand balls into a fist and sends Jared’s head cracking back down, reopening the cuts on his cheek, splitting the bruise around his left eye.

It’s a pulled punch, hardly half as terrible as the one’s Jared received earlier, but it still knocks Jared onto the ground, and somehow it hurts the most. Jared curls in on himself. Jensen steadies his breathing, shakes out his hand; traces of Jared’s blood lace around his knuckles.

“Ackles…”

“We’ve done enough damage. I think he’s learned his lesson.”

Jared sobs in relief, wants to reach his arms up and wrap them around Jensen and say _sorry_ with every inch of his body.

But Jensen doesn’t move.

“Uh…” Chad nervously shifts again. “Boss?”

“I said he’s learned his lesson. That doesn’t mean we’re cleaning this mess up. Leave him for the rats.”

Jensen turns heel and walks out without another word, the polished sole of his shoes echoing on the concrete. Chad follows uncertainly after, muttering a gentle and miserable apology as he exits the warehouse.

Tires squeal in the gravel as the SUV pulls away, and with the loss of Jensen in his line of sight, there goes his will to stay awake, alive even.

Jared’s out in seconds, can only pray that the blood loss is reputable enough that he won’t be alive once the rats come out to play.

\--

The FBI do come. They take Jared to the hospital and front his bills. Jared spends three weeks in the hospital, doesn’t receive one visitor that isn’t a government issued suit.

At the end, the FBI promises to do Jared better in witness protection the second time around. Jared says no thank you, he’d take his chances hiding on his own, collects his paycheck and gets the fuck out of town, tells them to direct their attentions into keeping his Mom safe instead. He writes her a letter, promises to send a postcard with an address for her to write to as soon as he gets situated.

He moves all his funds, he cancels all his accounts, he takes out all his savings in cash and he goes.

Jared, for all his years of living in the same place, is pretty damn good and getting the fuck out as soon as he can. He does not think about missing anyone. If anyone cared about Jared, they would have shown up at the hospital. Jared didn’t need to spend time missing people who didn’t care enough to say goodbye.

He considers sending a postcard to Gen, or Chad, but decides a clean break is for the best. He doesn’t want to worry about it falling into other hands. They left him to die in the warehouse as much as Jensen did.

He passes the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign a second time. He doesn’t once look back in the rearview mirror.


	9. Chapter 9

It takes a while, a lot of self-prescribed therapy and walking through the seemingly endless forests of Washington, but Jared finally starts to feel unafraid again, sleeps with the lights out, sleeps through the night, doesn’t jump at every moving shadow. It is the slow and hard fought process of what he thinks is the beginnings of forgiveness, for himself. Maybe even for Jensen too, which happened quicker than he’d been expecting. It’s not so much a process of letting bygones be bygones, but rather recognizing that they did the best that they could in the circumstances they were in. They’d hurt each other in the process, but they did what they had to, to survive, both of them.

Getting over Jensen continues to feel like an impossible feat, because Jared doesn’t hate him or fear him as much as he probably should. He wants to leave what he’d had with Jensen untarnished, unsullied by everything that had wrecked it. He didn’t want to be hard and bitter.

It takes time, but then, so do most things. But slowly and surely, the wound of Jensen walking away begins to heal.

In the three months since leaving Vegas behind, Jared’s gotten promoted to manager of the Moonstruck Café, a little mom and pop diner smack dab in the middle of Walla-Walla. Life has settled once more into an almost dull routine, which isn’t necessarily ideal, but it lays the groundwork for what Jared needs to make this life what he’s always wanted.

But as things typically go with Jared, it’s not dull for long.

He has begun to think he’s accepted everything, moved on from it. But one night he has one too many glasses of wine and the next the TV is blaring and Jared is miserably, morosely, self-pityingly drunk.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing, not really, only that there’s an invisible and stupidly sentimental part of him that lets him turn on the burner phone he keeps stashed in the deepest recesses of his underwear, wrapped in a sock like precious gold, dial the only number in the contacts list.

It rings five times. He begins to think that there’s no point to this anyway. The corresponding phone would have been thrown out anyway, after what he did.

The ringing stops, and it takes Jared a few long seconds to realize that there is someone on the other end of the line who has picked up his call just before it went to message.

She doesn’t say a goddamn thing.

“Oh fuck,” Jared slurs, wishing he’d never chosen to drink tonight. “I’ll just—”

“Hello Jared,” She says, voice emotionless.

The sound of her voice cuts deep like glass: skin and sinew, down to the bone. Jared wants to slam his head into the wall. He huffs into the phone, stares up at the ceiling, blinking back his exhaustion and drunkenness. It is difficult to remember why he called in the first place.

“Gen?”

Silence.

“Gen are you still there?”

She says nothing, but he hears the long sigh into the phone. He’s never heard someone sound so fucking disappointed in him, and it kind of makes him want to die.

“…I miss you.” He crashes back onto his mattress, hand over his eyes. “I fucked up so bad, and I know I’ve got to pay for it, but I’m so sorry, and I miss you, and I miss everyone. And Jensen—”

“No.” Gen’s tone is suddenly fierce, emphatic. “You don’t get to use his name after what you did to him. To us. You don’t deserve to.”

Jared’s apologies die in his throat. She’s right, and despite the tone in her voice he can hear the shaky breath she takes after. He doesn’t wait to hear if she’ll voluntarily speak again. He knows she won’t.

“I fucked up,” Jared says, “And I know that he’s going to kill me if he ever sees me again. If he doesn’t you will, but I wanted to say—”

“He’s doesn’t want to kill you.”

The words take a moment to coagulate into a sentence that Jared can decipher. “H-he…”

“Who do you think told the FBI about where Pellegrino and the others had you?” It is again, delivered in a perfectly emotionless tone that takes a while to make sense of. When the words click, the guilt Jared feels is overwhelming.

“I’m sorry.” It’s all he can seem to say.

“Jared,” and it’s only then that he hears the strain in her voice, small cracks forming on ice in springtime. “I have to go.” She whispers, “I shouldn’t be talking to you.”

“Gen—”

“Throw away this phone. Don’t call again.”

She hangs up. He hurls the phone to the floor, blinking dully when it snaps in half. She picked up, that’s the bright side of things, but there’s not much beyond that. Gen had made that clear. He’s pulling sentimental value from absolutely nothing, because he’s alone, and just realized he’s likely to spend the rest of his life that way.

That notion hadn’t bothered him too much, once upon a time.

Jared lies awake until the alcohol wears off, doesn’t fall asleep until dawn. Everything keeping Gen at a distance, everything keeping Jensen from killing him, it’s all tied together. They’d been family, fucked up as it was, and Jared had betrayed that. By all laws of mob, they should have killed him the second they knew. They didn’t.

It takes Jared a long time to decide which fate is worse in the long run: knowing what they were supposed to do or knowing that they didn’t.

The next morning, he takes the phone out back, crushes it under the heel of his shoe, tosses the pieces into the dumpster behind his work, and resolves not to drink again for some time.

\--

It’s the dinner rush at the Moonstruck Café. Jared’s got coffee on his apron and hash-browns in his hair from the toddler throwing a tantrum at table two. Its madness and the evening has barely begun, two of his waitresses called in sick, leaving Jared playing slightly apologetic manager as the rest of the staff try to compensate for the lack of staff in the kitchen. He’s mostly hanging around in the back, getting the plates together and hitting the dinner bell for Sandy to come and deliver to the tables.

He’s got a hand on a plate of Tofu burgers and sweet potato fries when Jensen walks in the door.

Jared freezes, every muscle in his body pulled taut and ready to bolt, as Sandy grabs the trays before he can drop them, and skates right on over to the designated tables, apologizing sweetly for the wait. Meanwhile, Jared tries to remember the simple process of breathing. Jensen doesn’t show any sign of having seen him, nor does he really look around as if he’s expecting Jared to be there. He simply sits at the farthest booth in the corner of the restaurant, orders a cup of coffee from Sandy, and opens the Sunday paper. He doesn’t once look in Jared’s direction.

Jared offhandedly wonders who’s with him, if there’s an auspicious looking vehicle parked just around the corner, and then chastises himself for such a thought. It’s none of his business. This isn’t a friendly visit or a game of catch-up. Jared’s not about to invite them all in for refreshments. He’s not entirely sure what Jensen is here for, but it’s not to pull off a family reunion.

He dismisses himself when another waiter arrives for his shift, and goes to the tiny closet of an office. It’s not a good place to think, but Jared knows there’s no thinking with Jensen in his line of sight from the kitchen. He paces like a caged wolf, tries to busy himself with paper work and tax returns for the restaurant and fails miserably. It’s not so much of a mental breakdown as it is a slow unraveling of all the loose ends he’d tied up so quickly over the past three months. No matter how many times he’d dreamed and wished a confrontation into existence, he didn’t think it would ever happen, and he certainly didn’t think it would be an ambush like this.

He calls Sandy in from the kitchen just before her break, aware of just how unsubtle he is being. “Who’s that guy at table twelve?”

Sandy shrugs. “Out of Towner. Keeping to himself. I keep trying to get him to order food, but he just wants coffee refills. Not that I mind, he’s kinda hot.”

Jared restrains himself from clueing the poor girl in that Jensen’s not really her type, dismissing her and leaving him to twiddle his thumbs at his desk for the next few hours, avoiding going out into the restaurant unless an emergency pops up. It’s a game, of sorts, another test to see who will fold. If Jensen leaves, it’s a fluke. If Jensen leaves, his appearance is a mere coincidence and Jared can go back to life the way it was becoming: predictable. If Jensen leaves, Jared’s heart can stop pounding.

By eleven pm, some four hours later, the restaurant is nearly empty.

Jensen did not leave.

It feels, like all things in this life, inevitable. And after hours of toiling, Jared’s done staring down the pike and waiting for it to come, for events coming full circle, back to where they started a lifetime ago.

Jared walks over, balances the tray against his hip.

“Is there anything else we can get you, sir?” He feels catapulted back into the past, serving the stranger in the corner of the middle of the restaurant, feeling suddenly older than his years.

Jensen looks up from his paper. He looks like Jared feels, older than his years. It turns out violence has double the strength of time, especially when you live in it.

“I was surprised it even took you this long to come in.” Jared adds. “How did you find me?”

“Tracking GPS in that burner phone Gen gave you. We knew where you were the second you turned the thing on.”

That should probably scare Jared more than it does. If they’d wanted him dead, it would have happened already. It’d been weeks since he’d drunk dialed Gen. He says nothing, rather looks at the familiar car parked outside on the street.

“You couldn’t have picked a more discreet travel vehicle?”

Jensen almost smiles. “What, is it that obvious?”

“Big black SUVs aren’t exactly subtle around these parts.”

“Guess not.”

“Very intimidating though.”

“Oh, undoubtedly. It’s my favorite part of the job description, all the lurking I get to do behind tinted windows.”

Jared laughs and it makes his ribs ache; he is not yet done healing.

He still sits down. For sentimentality sake, perhaps.

“You look tired.”

The corner of Jensen’s mouth quirks. “It’s been a long few months.” He swirls his spoon about his cooling mug, watching the dark liquid, not watching Jared. “Business has been booming.”

“Shouldn’t that give you reason to celebrate?”

“It turns out they were right. Money and success can’t buy you love.”

Jared fights back the urge to flinch at the word, fights back against every cell in him screaming to reach across the table and touch Jensen. He doesn’t even let himself respond, because that will only lead to words he is not allowed to speak anymore, on account of how they will only get him hurt, and they both know it.

No. He does not get to be weak now. He is iron, he is marble, he is steel.

He is all those things, but goddamn it if he doesn’t still love Jensen, perhaps more, than he did before this whole mess.

Jensen presses the mug in his hands, frowning once more. “I’m not going to ask how you are, Jared, because we both know that you’re fine, probably better than you ever were back in Vegas. And I’m not here to threaten you or to gloat or anything.”

“Then why _are_ you here?”

Jensen drags his gaze up to Jared’s face, and Jared sees that same slightly lost expression he did thousands of miles away on a night not unlike this. The knight in black, shouldering a burden he never asked for.

They stare at each other, stark and vulnerable, and still Jensen says nothing.

“I’ll have my accounting degree by the end of next year,” Jared offers, stacking the words like vertebrae to keep him upright, to keep him still. “I can’t exactly tell people about my previous experience, for the sake of keeping low profile, but at the end of the day I’ll be on the way to bigger and better things.”

“That’s great, Jared.”

“Is it?” Jared berates himself for needing his approval, his opinion in any way shape or form. “I don’t know, man. In some ways, I think I miss it. That terrible and bloody world. Deals in back alleys, last minute business ploys where lives were on the line. It’s never going to get that exciting when I’m an actual, legal accountant.”

Jared means it as a joke, but Jensen’s eyes flicker darkly, and just like that the warm tentative glow that had begun to fizzle between them is gone in a second.

“I’m sorry,” Jared says, and then, for clarity, “About everything.”

“I didn’t come here for that.”

“I’m offering it anyway.”

“Jared, this isn’t your _fault_ \--”

“There was a choice. I made my choice; it kind of _is._ ”

“We both did fucked up things.”

“Yes, but you were always honest with me,” Jared pleads for Jensen to understand. He only needed that. “You did bad things, terrible things, but I knew about them. Once I knew, you never hid anything from me after that. But I lied to you, Jensen, that’s not—that’s not—”

“I have killed people, Jared. Whether it was my finger that pulled the trigger or not, I have killed people. You are not a culprit in this. You are the victim,” Jensen snaps, and then stops, taking a shuddering breath, like the admittance of the truth had winded him.

Jared holds himself perfectly still, posture ramrod straight and immovable.

“And I am sorry,” Jensen adds, “I am. My world is a violent and terrible thing. Did I think you could handle it? Yes. But I never--I never wanted this.” He gestures at the air, at the restaurant, at Jared, as if the bruises and broken ribs are still visible.

Jared, allowing himself some breadth of movement, picks up Jensen’s stirring spoon, turning it over in his fingers. “You gave me an out. No, don’t do that--you did, you always did, right from the beginning. But I never took it. Because no matter how much I bitched and complained and cried in your arms, it was a world I chose to be part of.”

“Would you come back?” Jensen asks breathlessly.

He freezes. “Did you drive hundreds of miles away to offer to take me back?”

“I’ve missed you,” Jensen says colorlessly, a simple statement of fact along the lines of discussing the weather, the menu.

It tears Jared’s spine to pieces.

In the haze of fluorescent lighting and working another double shift, Jared can put on his rose colored glasses and see it all before him. Going back with Jensen, being with Jensen, his life constantly at risk but always with Jensen. He can see himself, Jensen’s right hand man, raising this crime empire from the depths of where it started, making something of himself, _being_ someone of importance. Making deals and cutting corners and negotiating where Jensen doesn’t know how. But most of all being _with_ Jensen, having his back and making sure he’s alright, keeping him up all night and keeping him in bed all morning. Sex and jazz and violence and neon lights, Jared could have a whole lifetime of it.

But this is a rose colored fantasy and while Jared wants Jensen with everything in him, Jared, like Jensen, never wanted any of this.

Jared sighs, begins restacking his vertebrae one by one. “You know who I am, Jensen. So you know, without me saying, that I will never let myself give up a life that’s mine to be in your world. Just as you will never give it up to be in mine. We’ve been over this before.”

They had, and Jensen knew it, Jared sees it on the grimace in his face.

“There was a time when I’d hoped—”

“I know,” Jared responds, then softer. “I know.”

Silence.

“What if--”

“There’s no what if. You’d think less of me,” Jared says, stemming whatever proposals Jensen was about to make, as if it’s not killing him to do so, twisting the knife between his ribs. “And I would think less of you for offering. We’d deny it as much as we could, but that’s who we are.” He shrugs, a bit self-deprecating. “Resolve and responsibility, they’re in our bones.”

“They don’t have to be.”

“You wouldn’t be the man I fell for if it were any other way.” Jared smiles sadly; something tells him it goes both ways.

Silence. Jensen turns his father’s ring on his finger.

“Maybe if things were different.”

“Maybe.”

“But that’s all over now.”

“Yeah. I guess it is.”

Jensen has never looked more lost to Jared than this moment and _god_ how Jared wants to bridge the space between them. He knows, without trying, that if Jensen so much as touches him that Jared will walk out that door after him, not blink twice and go straight back to where this all started. Jared is forceful in many ways, in all but one, strong in all but one.

But that’s what love does. It unmakes you, takes you apart and puts you back together but something’s different, something’s changed. It pulls you out of yourself until you no longer recognize the skin you’d been in before.

Jared would give anything to be selfish enough to leave with Jensen in this moment. To have Jensen leave with him.

But this story is not Cinderella, Jared thinks bitterly. Happy fairy tale endings do not belong in a world such as this. Even all those months ago, when Jared had felt swept away, it had all been a fantasy, playing at true love that was meant to be.

This story is not Cinderella, it never was.

“Why did you come to the bar that night?” Jared asks, the need to know suddenly urgent.

“It had been a bad day. A hard day. We’d just discovered the FBI agent in our ranks and dealt with him. And all I could think of was how my Dad would have laughed at me for thinking I could do this. So I took a cab and I picked the shittiest strip club off the strip where no one would know me, and I could drown my sorrows in peace. I hadn’t gone looking for company that night.”

“And yet there I was.”

Jensen looks at him one more time, eyes soft. “There you were.”

Jared breaks the eye contact first, looks at his hands. Jensen rises, straightens his coat. Leaves a tip on the table, another crisp one hundred dollar bill.

“I want you to know,” Jensen says, voice low and intimate, and Jared can’t look at him, he _can’t,_ “I never had a reason to leave this life before you. And when all is said and done, you would be the reason I did leave, no matter how much time has passed, no matter who I’ve become. It will be because of you.”

“Jensen, you don’t have to—”

“You have unmade me,” Jensen presses, “There will never be gratitude enough for that.”

He leaves, the restaurant blurs at the edges as Jared blinks rapidly, only his steel spine keeping him rooted. He huffs away the emotions he can deal with later and swings around in the booth seat with a small smile.

“Hey.”

Jensen stops at the door, hand clutching the knob. He does not tremble with the weight of the world on his shoulders as he looks back at Jared in question, and so Jared does not let his voice tremble when he speaks.

“If you ever decide to retire, cash in on your mafia pension, whatever. Should there ever be a day where you decide that your work is done, and that your well-earned summer vacation at Belladonna is beckoning… give me a call, okay?”

The words transform Jensen’s face in the span of a second before he nods in return, and Jared thinks _unmade_.

The doorbell tinkles slightly as Jensen exits into the darkness, walks to the SUV idling at the curb.

Jared watches as the headlights fade and then turn at the stoplight, disappearing from view.

Outside, past the patio, the snow turns into rain.

\--

Without explanation, just knowing that it’s the right thing to do, Jared skips town. He’s not so secure in his skills of camouflage, and he knows that if Jensen was able to find him, it’s possible that others will too. He wants more than anything to stay, less out of common sense and more out of the naïve hope that Jensen might come back.

But Jensen does not, Jared knows him all too well to expect that this fact will change. So, not more than two weeks later, he’s off somewhere in the middle of nowhere Montana, still taking his night classes online, pulling double shifts in another Podunk town, the kind where they mount Bison heads on the wall and play country music.

It’s a slow afternoon, the customers limited to a few regulars, quietly sipping their beers as Jared towels down tables, when the news comes blaring on with a BREAKING headline. He’s not really paying attention, working on scrubbing out a particularly nasty stain from a table when he hears the words ‘Vegas’ and ‘gangs’ and ‘fire’ ring out like alarms, bringing any and all tasks to a screeching halt.

It doesn’t take long for the news anchor to cut to the chase. There was a huge drug bust featuring several gangs in Las Vegas, around two am last night. Gangs from all over the country, one of the biggest busts in decades. The deal was intercepted by FBI agents, there was a gun fight, the location went up in a blaze of flames. Several were either found dead, or presumed dead, bodies still yet to be identified. FBI’s most wanted, caught by their own mistakes, the anchor man says, either in custody or burned to a crisp.

They show familiar looking mug shots on the screen of the suspects in question. Some strangers, but many recognizable, some particularly so. Pellegrino. Sheppard. Olson.

Jensen.

Jared’s internal organs seem to plummet to his feet as he stares at the all too familiar face, frozen as the anchorman explains that the faces on the screen are either dead or caught, autopsy still waiting to confirm.

The walk to the phone booth in the back corner of the bar feels like one of the hardest things Jared’s ever done. The phone in his hand feels like an anvil, the quarters a hundred pounds each as he slips them into the slot, dials one of the few numbers he’s made a point to keep in mind, waits as it connects.

“This is Amell.”

They haven’t spoken since Jared checked out of the hospital, since Jared made him swear to make sure no one came near his mom, but also to stay the fuck away from him.

“Is it he one of them?” Jared doesn’t mean for his voice to sound so goddamn petrified, but he is suddenly gripping the edge of the phone booth with everything in him, staring at the murky glass. “Don’t bullshit me, Amell. Was he one of the dead that the news mentioned?”

Silence. Amell sighs.

“You know I’m not at liberty to discuss—”

“Humor me, why don’t you. You owe me that much.”

“I offered you Wit Sec, you don’t get to swap that out for anything else.”

“Just tell me,” Jared whispers. “Just say it.”

He white knuckles the phone cord, grinds his teeth. Whatever Amell won’t say, he can handle it, he can take it, he can _deal._ He has been abandoned, beaten to near death, survived plenty of pain to make it this far. He has been through worse. Whatever has got Amell hesitating, the line quiet between them, Jared can take it. He can. He must.

“I’m sure he would’ve wanted you to stay underground,” Stephen says slowly, in a voice that should sound soothing but really sends Jared racing with anxiety bracing for the impact, “He wanted—”

“He wanted,” Jared says robotically. “Past tense.”

An intake of breath. Amell doesn’t contradict Jared, which pretty much says it all.

“There is a chance that the other gangs might still be looking for you, especially with him off the streets, it might be better to pick up and move again, just in case.”

Right. Jared hears the words, his mind jolting into a kick-start, jotting out a mental to do list. He needs to grab his bag. Grab his few belongings. He needs to let go of this fucking phone cord.

“He’s gone isn’t he?”

The line falls silent. He can still hear Amell breathing on the other end. The phone booth feels suddenly claustrophobic.

Jared held it together when he shot a man for the first time. He held it together in the hospital, when there had been no flowers or visitors. He’d held it together all these years, through everything.

But in this moment Jared crumples, face hot, throat aching. He wishes, selfishly and suddenly, that Genevieve were here to cling to, rather than the phone; her tiny frame and strong hands the only thing keeping him upright, rather than the Plexiglas windows of the phone booth.

Amell is still on the line. Jared does not make a sound.

“Look, Padalecki,” he says, and now the tone of his voice changes again, not so much the voice of a sympathizer than of an agent giving terse orders, “It went down the way he would have wanted. You’ll always have the memories of the time you had together. If you remember anything, remember that. He’ll always be with you, that way.”

“I never wanted any of this,” Jared whispers, to himself, to the woman he wishes were there. His chest aches with trying to breathe, he knows he should hang up but the phone feels like the only thing that’s anchoring him upright. “I never—”

He never wanted any of this. Jensen had known that. Jared can’t even form a coherent explanation of what he means by saying it out loud. How even though things were bleak, he’d always thought Jensen would come back to him. In months, in years, in decades, perhaps, but he felt in the marrow of him that they’d find their way back to each other.

He had forgotten, of course, how rarely things worked out in their favor, between the two of them.

“Padalecki,” Amell says, his voice taking that strange emphatic tone again. “Listen to what I’m telling you.”

“What are you—”

“I can only say so much before I’m crossing the line,” Stephen says shortly. “Take some time off to grieve, get out of wherever you are. I better not have to spell it out for you.”

There is something odd about the emphasis of those words. Jared blinks. “I don’t understa—”

“Take a fucking _summer vacation_ , Padalecki. Jesus Christ.”

Summer vacation. Jared straightens, very cell of him standing to attention.

“Right,” He croaks, the world suddenly snapped into perspective. “Thanks for that. And thanks for picking up.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Amell says slowly, “And don’t go looking for trouble. We’ll know if you try to make contact with anyone. I better not hear from you again.”

“Likewise.”

Amell hangs up. The dial tone sounds in his ear, and the phone goes clattering as Jared drops it, swinging to and from the chord like a body hanging from a noose in the wind.

It takes him fifteen minutes to pack the things he needs, to leave a note for his boss, to cancel his lease. He’s on the highway in five. He drives until he’s finally exhausted himself to the point where sleep is impossible to keep at bay, pulls over to the side of some nameless road and passes right out in the front seat.

\--

There are perks to having a damn near photographic memory. Jared takes pride in that, for the most part. But now, bleary eyed and driving nowhere, Jared doesn’t even know where he’s going, only that he’s doing so with every single memory of Jensen playing in HD accuracy, vivid detail, in his mind’s eye. There are no perks to remembering almost everything about a person when it hurts this much. Stephen Amell, as helpful as he was probably trying to be within his job restrictions, was partially not helpful at all, his advice as cryptic as it was vague. Jared’s barely sure if he’s even going off of anything but gut instinct.

Take a summer vacation, Amell had said. So Jared would. To the only place he could remember summer vacations happening in recent memory.

He remembers everything Jensen ever told him, which somehow makes it all the more difficult to reconcile that Jensen is likely dead.

Likely. Jared’s gut instincts have never been off the mark, and now they’re screaming at him, something’s off, something’s not quite on the mark.

Take a fucking summer vacation, Amell had said. Jared clings to those words like they’re all he’s got left.

The drive to Vancouver takes fifteen hours, but Jared does it without thinking, because it’s the only desperate hope he’s got. Belladonna Drive is its own private road, on private land in the middle of the forest, Jared only has to buy a few maps once he makes it over the border, grateful until the end of time that he thought to get a passport long before he ever got out of Vegas, just in case. He drives a bit aimlessly, exhausted, running on nothing but coffee and fumes and the vague hope that his gut instinct is right.

Jensen had barely mentioned the vacation home in passing, but it had stuck in Jared’s mind simply because of the way Jensen had sounded when he talked about it. The summer vacation home, he’d called it. The retreat, really, that his mother had set up for them when things in the criminal world of Sin City had gotten a little much.

He’s hoping against all logic, but that doesn’t stop him from doing it.

There’s no car in the driveway when he pulls up to the house, a massive four story estate.

He’s slow to get out of the car, mostly from grogginess, his throat tacky and dry from dehydration, face swollen. He’s got no way of knowing what time it is, only that it’s cold, and he’s surrounded by a forest.

Jared tells himself with every heavy step towards the cabin door, a large lodge house of several stories height, that he will likely be okay if there’s no one home, if Stephen’s words were just words, and nothing more. Life will move on. He will get another job, get another place, start over again. He can certainly do it again, because he’s done it before. He will give himself a few weeks to grieve, and then he will be back at the grindstone. It’s who he is, in both nature and nurture. He’ll never not want to live.

It’s what made him strong. And now, it’s what makes him tired.

There’s lights are on in the house, in the kitchen. There’s jazz music filtering out of where the window is cracked open, piano and Billie Holliday, from the tinny and cut off sound of it.

He doesn’t wait to see who’s inside. He approaches the unlocked door and lets himself in, weary down to his bones. Almost too tired to be cautious. If he’s trespassing, it will be nothing to apologize and profess to being a lost traveler, and take off again.

There’s something cooking in the oven. It smells like macaroni. Billie Holiday is indeed playing on an old record player.

Jared doesn’t really allow the moment to impact him the way he should. He’ll work himself up into a righteous rage later, he’s sure. But for now he takes a seat on the couch in the living room, close to Billie’s voice, and waits.

When Jensen comes in through the backdoor, carrying an armful of firewood, looking more of a civilian than Jared’s ever seen him, Jared almost laughs. He could kill him, he really could.

Jensen stops, like a deer caught in the headlights, the second he sees Jared. For whatever it’s worth, he hadn’t seen Jared coming. There’s a brilliant bruise on his mouth, a crack on his lip, dried blood gathering on the split of it. There’s a pretty hefty bandage on the side of his head, and what Jared assumes are stitches. If Jared had fight in him right now, he’d probably deck him again, only to follow up with holding him tighter right after, too furious with Jensen to let him speak, too relieved to let go.

Jensen shakes his head, like there’s something funny about the entire situation. “I should have known.”

His face is scruffier than Jared’s ever seen it, but there’s a lightness in his eyes that speaks to real, genuine rest. It looks good on him. Jared finds with each passing second that it is difficult to be mad at him at all, though he’s sure that sensation will pass.

In the fairy tale version of this, Jared would sweep Jensen off his feet and kiss him passionately. In the fairy tale version, they’d stumble their way into the bedroom for at least a solid week until they’d fucked all their problems away. But as it is, there is a heaping pile of elephants in this room.

“Thought you’d give me a call now that you retired.”

Jensen grimaces. “I didn’t want to uproot your whole life again on my account.”

“Wasn’t much of a life without you.” Jared shrugs, like the statement itself isn’t as important as it sounds.

This is not a fairy tale, but with the way Jensen’s looking at him, soft and hopeful, Jared’s starting to think that fairy tales are overrated anyway.

Jared sits, back perfectly straight on the couch, looking Jensen over like he hasn’t been able to in months. He doesn’t trust himself to stand. He can hear his pulse in his ears as Jensen sets the firewood down, walks over, sits down on the couch next to him.

“So what happens now?” He asks.

Jensen shrugs, gestures at the kitchen. “How about dinner, for starters?”

Billie Holliday croons about being loved all fine and mellow. Jared, his spine still strong and straight, feels himself start to smile, despite everything.

“Yeah, Jensen. I’d like that.”

\--

They’re not on the lam, not exactly. It’s more of an unofficial exiling, a witness protection that’s been swept under the rug because Agent Amell couldn’t really pardon one of FBI’s most wanted on paper. It’s a long story of convoluted negotiations and bargaining, assuming Jensen really did make it out alive.

They’d faked his death, because the other gangs would never have believed it unless they saw Jensen go down. It was an ugly firefight. Mike took a bullet to the thigh. Chris got beat pretty badly. A bullet had clipped Jensen’s temple and for an ugly second, he’d thought he was dead. They’d just had to hold out until the FBI stormed, and after the longest wait ever, they held true to their word. Shot Jensen in the chest. Only thing was he had bled so much from the temple wound that he pretty much keeled over after the impact from the bullet into his Kevlar vest. And then, like clockwork, the warehouse had exploded in a burst of flames. Jensen had been unofficially identified as charred to death, but Jensen had already been on a bus to Canada by this point.

It helps that Jensen reveals most of this to Jared while they lie in bed together long after they eat, it depletes Jared’s frustration at not being warned. He’s too wrung out and surrounded by afterglow to muster up the energy to punch Jensen over and over as he kind of wants to. Rather, he lets Jensen talk, presses his cheek to the pillow, watches his face, his freckles, the rise of his cheekbones, until he stops being mad altogether. Until Jensen, eyes hooded with drowsiness, says, “Missed you so much” over and over. Until Jared believes him. Until they fall asleep together and Jared wakes up feeling righteously pissed off all over again.

They fight. They have sex on the kitchen floor. They have sex in the shower. They fight again.

Jensen’s bruises from the bullet to the Kevlar vest have begun to blossom in earnest. Jared presses his mouth to all of them, gentle. Makes his own bruises in other places, not so gentle. It’s a rinse and repeat cycle of fighting and fucking but slowly, wounds above and beneath the surface begin to heal. Slowly, a sprout of trust unfurls from the ashes of their wreck of a situation, of hope.

They were never perfect from the beginning, Jared and Jensen. Maybe that’s how they end up sticking it through in the end.

Jared’s fierce and unrelenting independence never waivers; he gets his degree, graduates from university with his degree in accounting, works at the biggest firm in the territory by the end of their first year together. Jensen… does nothing, for a while. He checks up on his friends and makes a lot of calls to make sure everyone got out in one piece. He learns how to cook in earnest. Starts teaching himself to play piano, learns his favorite songs. He takes his time. They both know there’s a Harvard education to use when he’s ready, but Jared is more than aware that Jensen probably appreciates the sudden lack of responsibility and accountability for lives more than he’d ever admit.

In this trial and error process of taking care of another’s heart, they are both learning that being strong does not always mandate doing everything alone. They’re better together, Jared knows that now.

Like two equally stubborn vines—sprouted from winter soils that were poisoned with blood, knowing nothing beyond how to survive—they now find themselves able to grow around each other.

The summer they get married is filled with brilliant sunsets that settle into hazy nights. It’s a quiet wedding, out in the backyard as the sun slips beneath the tops of the pines. Jared’s mom walks him down the aisle. She’s shaky as hell, and the sleeve of his tux wrinkles as she grips at it. He doesn’t know if she’ll make it out here in the real world this time, but for now her jaw is set and determined and she wants to be there. Jared suddenly sees so much of himself in her it hurts to have never noticed it before.

In their attempt to keep it just friends, it’s rather unorthodox. Chris officiates, Chad skips down the hallway as the flower girl and Gen holds the rings. Jared and Jensen exchange vows that are succinct and without too much sentiment. Everyone bawls their eyes out anyway.

The ceremony and reception takes place in the backyard at the cabin, where Sam prepared a delicious four-course meal and a cake. Danneel sings the song for their first dance, and everyone sips champagne and toasts again and again to the married couple. The tents they sit under in the backyard are aglow with lanterns, and fireflies. It’s summer, and the air is sweet. There is no violence here.

He finds Jensen sometime after they eat the cake, and the jazz music has begun on the dance floor. He stands at the wrap around porch along the side of the house, full glass of champagne set on the wooden railing, pensively staring out. The lanterns do not cast his face in shadow, but rather in a warm light. He’s troubled around his brow, but Jared spots the contentedness around the mouth, like he still felt the echo of the kiss on the altar.

“Hey.” Jared sidles up from behind, leans back against the rail to face him, and presses their shoulders together. “You alright?”

Jensen smiles wryly, gesturing out at the air. “Waiting for the other shoe to drop, I suppose.”

Jared chuckles. “I know the feeling. Normal always feels like such a privilege for us, doesn’t it?”

They both look out at the night sky, the meadow where they spend long afternoons reading in the sun. It’s one of Jared’s favorite spots in the summer house, second only to their bedroom, and the sitting room where Jensen sits sometimes and toils at the piano, giving his best attempt at some old Ella Fitzgerald classics. There are other places, Jared is sure, that he will come to love as much, sees their potential immediately: the nook in the kitchen where Jensen sits and nurses his coffee every morning, the medicine cabinet where they keep their toothbrushes, the laundry room, a constant amalgam of Jared’s clothes and Jensen’s clothes that they bicker over the ownership of nonstop. There is time, he thinks, to love them, because this—unlike any home he’s had before—feels permanent. The kind of home where roots can grow, where wounds can heal, where time is not a constant consideration of ‘someday’ and rather a solid statement of ‘now’.

Jared turns and puts his arm around Jensen’s shoulders, sighs when Jensen noses affectionately at the crook of his neck.

“It really was a nice wedding, wasn’t it?” Jensen says, chuckling as the sound of another bottle of champagne being popped goes off, followed by cheers from inside the house.

“Gorgeous. Danni and Gen outdid themselves. You could say it was a wedding fit for a mobster,” Jared teases.

“Or a wedding fit for a chief accountant at one of Canada’s biggest firms.”

“Hey.” Jared shrugs. “Someone’s got to bring home the bacon.”

“There’s no one I’d trust more to do it.”

They’re quiet again. Jared thinks he should go in to check on mom, but Chris said he’d keep an eye on her. He’s got time to linger for a little bit.

Jensen is kissing the underside of his jaw with such tenderness, and the ring on his finger feels like a promise, and Jared’s never been more thankful for the day the city’s biggest crime lord had a mini-breakdown and walked into Jared’s shitty bar.

He wants to linger in this moment because come what may, this moment is sealed in its own happiness. If there are storm clouds on the horizon, trouble brewing in the future, they can’t see it from here.

“So what do you say Mr. Ackles?” Jared grins slyly at his husband. “Honeymoon in Vegas?”

Jensen throws his head back and laughs and laughs and laughs, the joyous sound echoing through the meadow and trees. Around them, the fireflies dance and float, like moving neon lights in the dark.


End file.
